Just thought of another thing.

When doing the initial sharpening passes - I protect the highlights from being sharpened - using the "blend if" controls from the layer menu.  It has made a huge difference in the quality of prints (sometimes just looking at a print from a DSLR - screams digital) protecting the highlights, and only sharpening the midtones,  has really turned the prints into a much more film like appearance.

Then regardless of final print sharpening pS or Qimage, the final results have been really pleasing.

Todd

Eljae,

I also use some selective sharpening techniques, mostly stuff from the "real world image sharpening" book by Bruce Fraser.

The advantages of the mask I like are for example, keeping the sky masked to keep clouds soft, to keep long exposure water shots soft, etc. 

So my workflow has been Source sharpening, selective (creative) sharpening, and then I resize and final (print)  sharpen in photo shop.  I will still use qimage to print, but I shut off all the sharpening and resizing features of qimage..

Or - my second option is Source sharpening, selective sharpening in photoshop and the let qimage resize (But I will turn the print sharpening down to 2 or 3)  After some experimenting I have found that the default sharpening  setting of 5 produces an oversharpened image, being that it is subsequent to two previous rounds of sharpening.   

My question/comment to you is: do you use the mask tech. from Bruce Fraser?  If so have you set up the automation (actions)? I recently did, wow what a breeze it is to make some quick sharpening actions.  I did modify his process a little bit, in order to have some more manual control over what gets masked out.

I have been really happy with the quality of prints using these techniques.

todd

Cool - thanks all for the informative help.

Todd

Hi there,

I am really enjoying getting to know qimage - What i use it for the most is printing multiple images to one sheet. For me the advantage is to get true print dimensions  ( ex. true 4x6 dimension on an 8x10 sheet , without the scaling of the picture to fit on a 4x6 sheet)

I use an epson 1400.

My questions are.

1. If I crop the photo in PS and end up with a 4x6 crop, I don't resample it, so my native resolution is around 512 PPI.  Then I go to qimage, in the job properties it show MAX 720, then 360, 180 etc. - If I choose MAX, (then if I understand correctly, qimage will upsize my 4x6 print to 720 PPI and print it)

This feels counter productive to me to upsize a 4x6 print from 512 to 760, Would I be better of using 360 PPI and letting qimage downsample for a 4x6? ( i hope I questioned this clearly)

2nd question, After much looking around online, I am unable to figure out what the Photo RPM setting actually does on the Epson 1400, can anyone point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance,

Todd
denver CO