It doesn't matter whether your monitor is calibrated, custom profiled, etc.  No calibration can account for brightness and viewing conditions so your monitor could still be too bright.  So the right way to do this is to get some of that Epson paper and print with an Epson profile for that paper.  Then adjust your monitor to match the print (not the other way around).  The focus being: get a baseline using an Epson paper for which you already have an Epson profile, then compare that baseline print to the monitor.  Unless there is something wrong with the printer (or profile), the key is to adjust your monitor so it matches the print... and most important, when you print this baseline test, use an unmodified test print that was designed for print evaluation and not an image you have edited.

Regards,
Mike

This is just not making sense to me.  Why set the width to 50 when you could set the width to 70 and get a larger 70 x 46.67 that fills the same frame?

Is it because you want a 10cm border on the left and right so you are subtracting 20cm ahead of time?  If so, that's what photo mats are for (uneven borders) and this would be the workflow:

• Select your thumbnail and click the "More" option at the bottom of the print sizes
• Select "Specify ONE dimension" and enter "50" as the size you know and choose "This is the LONG side"
• You now have your print at 50 x 33.33 and you want to "grow" that to 70 x 50 so...
• Right click on the print, choose "Photo Mats (uneven borders)", "Add Photo Mat"
• On the Photo Mats Properties dialog, enter your 10 on the left and right and your 8.33 on the top and bottom
• Make sure the "Grow" button on the bottom is selected, select the mat color (presumably white) and click OK

Now you have a 50 x 33.33 print that has a 10cm border left and right and 8.33cm border on the top and bottom.  When you activate cut marks, it marks the mat which is 70 x 50.

If this is still not what you are talking about, keep it simple.  For example, are you always cutting 70 x 50cm?  If so, what logic defines the print size that goes in that 70 x 50?  A 10cm minimum border?  Something else?

Mike

Hi Mike,

The monitor is a calibrated EIZO CS2730, so I suppose the issue is not here.

I'll follow you advice and start from scratch. I'll buy some epson sheets and try them out with the Epson ICC profiles.

The custom profile we use now was made by the company who sold us the printer. I sent them one of those color checkers printed with our printer on permajet oyster paper and they sent us an ICC profile back. Unfortunatly, our prints came out too dark. To solve that issue, I fiddled around in the printer driver and found out that by setting the gamma to 1.8 our prints came out perfect. So yes, as you mention it's double profiling to correct what I suppose is an ICC profile that is not correctly made. It always bugged me that I had to set that gamma setting, but since we didn't have the need to change papers and the results were very satisfying I just left it like that.

The issue somehow resurfaces now, because I'm experimenting with other papers types. I bought some Permajet Matt Plus paper, that I use with the ICC profile from their website but the results aren't satisfying.

Their profile only mentions "EAM" which is Epson Archival Matte (which according to some is equal to "Ultra Premium Paper Presentation Matte" and "Enhanced Matte", the driver doesn't list Epson Archival Matte in the media types). There's many information on their website, so perhaps I missed something regarding the driver settings.

I'll do some more test and eventually get back with some results.

Cheers,
Dimitri

Hi Mike, thanks for you reply.

I realise I didn't express myself clearly. I'll try to do better now (not a native english speaker).

Our photoclub uses 70x50 frames. For our annual exhibition, our members send in their photos in full resolution, all of different aspect ratios. Those photo have to be printed on a sheet that has a 70x50 size. Those 70x50 sheets are then fixed onto a 70x50 'adhesive' card board. That cardboard is then inserted into the 70x50 frame.

We don't fill the 70x50 sheet with the photo, there's always a white border around it, with the photo either perfectly centered or slightly shifted up towards the visual center if needed.

What I do at the moment, is the following. Let's say I have a landscape photo in 3x2 aspect ratio. I open it in photshop, I set the width of that photo, using image size to let's say 50cm (no resampling). Then I expand the canvas to exactly 70x50cm. My photo is now 50cm wide and 33.3 cm high and has a white border around it (10cm left, 10cm right, 8,3cm top and 8,3cm bottom). I then save the image as a tiff, and print it with qimage using crop marks so we know where to cut the paper.

I've made several actions in photoshop for different photo size and photo orientations, so the operation is fairly streamlined but I was wondering if something similar can be done in Qimage?

Add your 5:8 image at a size of 8x10 with auto crop off: you'll get a 6.25x10.  Then right click on the image and select Photo Mats, Add Photo Mat.  Enter zero on the top and bottom and .875 on the left and right since that's half of what is missing (8-6.25).  Set the color to black, click the "grow" option and you have your image, non cropped, as big as it'll go on an 8x10 area, with a black fill.

Mike

An 8" x 10" frame is 4:5 ratio   .... your image is 5:8 ratio ... something has to give.

Image below overall size is 4:5 ratio ... sky image is 5:8 ratio

Hey, Mike.  I have a similar question.  I am printing on 8.5”x11” paper.  Want to put print in 8”x10” frame.  Image has 5:8 aspect ratio. I want to print as big as possible but retain aspect ratio (all of image).  Want all area outside image filled with black (or any other selected color)

Of course.  This is a simple operation in Qimage but I need to know more than the mat size.  This can be done either with borders or photo mats in Qimage but knowing that the mat size is 70x50 is not enough: what size print is going in that mat?  How much of a border are you using?  You say your frames are 70x50 and you want to print a photo + mat.  Does that mean you want to print a 70x50 photo with just a little extra border around that to make it mountable on the back of the mat?  If that's the case, just set your print size to 70x50 and add (for example) a 5cm B+ border.  You'll then get a print that is 80x60, 70x50 of which is the print in the middle.  Turn on the cut marks if you want to mark the 80x60 to cut it.

If that's not what you are asking, please clarify.

Regards,
Mike

Start with the basics.  Most "dark prints" complaints come from having your monitor too bright which causes you to develop (edit) your images so they are too dark.  Put an Epson paper (say photo paper pro glossy) in the printer and use Epson's included profile to print on that: how does that look?  This is an easy way to get a calibration and it is proof that your printer and editing are working as they should.  Only after that would you start playing with custom papers and profiles.

When you say you are using custom profiles, did those profiles come with instructions on how to use them with the driver: which settings in the driver to pick like media type, quality, etc?  Also, using color controls in the driver along with a profile will not work: when using a profile, the driver needs to be set to "no color adjustment".  Switching it to "color controls" will cause double profiling.

Regards,
Mike

Our photoclub frames are all 70 cm x 50 cm. What we currently do is that we place a mat around the photo in photoshop at that that exact size, center or place the photo within it how we like, and than print that photo with crop marks so we can cut the paper afterwards.

I tried fiddling aroung with the photo mats option in QImage, but I can't get it to have a perfect sized photo + mat of 70x50cm.

Can it be done?