Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

I've been a Qimage user for quite a few years, currently using Studio v 2010.209, but I've been away from it for several months, and I've forgotten how to set up borderless printing. Clearly, I'm missing something very simple - but I can't work out what it is.

Trying to print several dozen images from a family reunion on 4X6 paper. These were shot with a Canon S100 camera, so the borderless size should be 4.00X5.333 inches because of the aspect ratio of that camera's images (that is, I expect to have small borders on the long ends of the prints, but not on the short ends). I go to Printer Properties, choose "borderless", then put a couple of images in the print queue, double-click on one image, bringing up the Edit screen. The "Image Effects" part of that screen lists printed size as "3.4X4.53". I change that to "4.00X5.333", choose "crop", define the entire image, then choose OK. Then I double-click on the image in the preview again. The printed size is back to 3.4X4.53 inches. No matter what I do, the printer size always defaults back to 3.4X4.53 inches, resulting in significant borders all the way around the printed image. What have I forgotten to do? What have I missed?

Thanks for any thoughts on this. You folks have saved my behind many times over the years. I hope you can do it again.

Bill Hansen
Ithaca NY USA

Bill,
What printer do you have?

Hi Fred - Good to see you here. I'm using an Epson R2880. I've used Q to print hundreds of images with this printer - but I haven't needed to print borderless for a very long time. Printer settings in the Printer Setup dialog, accessed through Q, are Size=4X6 in - Source=Sheet (borderless) - Orientation=Portrait (and rotate the image in Q as required) - then the several color management settings, which I don't think apply to the print size.

I think I'm going wrong somewhere on the Edit screen of Qimage, and most likely in the Image Effects box of that screen, where I'm trying to force Q to print at size 4.0X5.33 but it always defaults back to 3.4X4.50

Bill

Ok Bill, Good to talk again.
This is pretty straight forward.
I happened to have some S 100 images and the 2880 driver.
Apparently, you want no cropping at all, just fill the sides.
OK, In the driver you selected 4 x 6 paper and Borderless is checked. That produces a printable area on the 4x6 paper of 4.0 x 6.0.
You find that located above the preview panel, upper right of the screen.

Add your image, crop scissors OFF, and select Fit to page as your size selection.
Your print size will be 4.00 x 5.31. That is as large as you can print without cropping on a 4 x 6 paper with an S 100 image (which has not been cropped earlier)

So there are only two pot holes that could trip you up.
1) The images *were* cropped in the editor, and no longer have the aspect ratio 4:3 that the original image has, so with crop scissor off you would get varying sizes.
2) In the driver, you might have meddled with some setting in the Layout screen. See attached.
No checkmarks in Reduce/Enlarge.... and make sure OUTPUT still says, SAME AS PAPER SIZE.
I'll stop here and see how you are doing.

Fred

Ah man, I hate to admit this - I had forgotten to chenge the Print Properties in Q to "4X6 in". That was the whole trouble. But - your last note really was the key for me, when you wrote about the cropping scissors. Thanks! You saved me again. The first run of prints is coming out now, and they're "perfect" for the purpose.

Bill