I'm a long-term user of QImage, then Pro, then from early 2010, Studio. It has been far the best printing prog for PC for as long as I can remember, but flaws with the UI,, sometimes baffling or counter-intuitive workflow and unintended results, have often made it bizarre and frustrating to work with. Still, once I learned its somewhat wayward nature, it offered great control and results. I have been glad to recommend it to countless people.

I've now downloaded and used the trial version of Ultimate some. It is, finally, the prog that QI, QIP, QIS ought to have been all along. It has a tidier and more rational UI, is far easier to not get lost or forget how to do something. It feels better programmed and designed, less of an ad-hoc accretion of ideas. It is faster, slicker. I can understand why it is the way forward.

It still has trad QI irritations, like no standard Windows ability to Move the window via Alt/Space. This is a royal pain for those of us who run with the taskbar at the top of the screen instead of at the bottom. QI doesn't respect this, jamming itself at the top of the screen so the title bar + min/maximise controls remain hidden forever. FGS, why, after all these years?

I understand that it's a ground-up recode, and a lot of work. But from the user point of view it's just an incremental improvement in areas where people have been begging for changes for many years, and have learned to live with the limitations when they weren't forthcoming. This makes the absence of any upgrade discount policy a big mistake. There is no upgrade path from QI/P/S to QIU, no inducement to make the change, beyond "free" camera profiles for RAW conversion.

I hate to tell you this, but QI is starting late from the back of a very big pack where RAW processing is concerned. The world and his dog use Lightroom, or ACR, or CO, or any one of a large bunch of commercial and camera mfr. bundled products. RAW processing is a problem that most QI users will have solved, and invested in, before thinking about QI. Even if QIU is brilliant at it, and it may well be - I happen to be married already to Silkypix Studio, another eccentric-but-gifted prog, after trying most of what's on the market - it's not going to be the reason most people buy it. They'll continue to buy on the strength of QI's rep as the premier print prog., an area where there is virtually no meaningful competition, and Adobe just keep on messing up.

The $19/year update sub is yet another reason to stay put. It's hard to see what justification there is for a product whose core functionality is cloned from the mature and static original QI. Nobody should have to pay for bugfixes. Only the RAW stuff will need constant updating, and that's an incidental feature for most. Maybe it will be attractive to some new users, but only maybe 5% of digital photographers ever use RAW, and 95% of those will use some other processing s/w that either integrates DAM, or works with DAM better than QI does, ie not at all. If you want to develop QIU toward being a proper all-in-one RAW, DAM and output solution, yes there is potential, but right now that is a long, long way off.

Sadly all this means that those of us who are QI users and just want its printing abilities will likely stick with the legacy version for as many years as we can despite Ultimate being somewhat nicer and better, if not yet mature.

Well that was nicely put.

I would say that as a result of your Raw v Jpeg thread and my joining in that discussion I have had my full $19 worth of help, instruction, and suggestions direct from the prog Author and others just on that one session.

I only regret I am totally unable to successfully recommend Qimage to friends and fellow club members in return, Adobe has got there first and completely brain washed them.

I am not unduly anti Adobe and use Elements 4 and 7 which can do things Qimage cannot. So I pays my money and make my choice and run both.  But $19 for full support is the best value one is likely to get.

Jeff

Clearly you do :-)


You need to get out more. The default position was widely criticised from before the launch of XP. Many who realise it can be moved park it at the top because it's then like a normal drop down menu, close to application menus.  Some weirdos even run with at the side so it can be parked on a second monitor. But regardless of deviant personal preference, it's just standard Win app good manners to respect the taskbar position. Apps are not supposed to obscure or hide under it, and the vast majority do not.

In case you missed it, I'm saying QUI finally improves a lot of UI aspects that have dogged QI for years. It's just a small shame that this one persists.


MC says it's a brand new prog! Now you're telling me it's a makeover with some added stuff. Whichever, I agree it's better.

My point was however that for anyone who bought QI for its unrivalled printing abilities, which has been its whole USP, the new version offers very little beyond a better, tidier UI. Is that really worth $89?

I'm not getting into a debate about Adobe here. That company drives me up the wall. Unfortunately Photoshop remains like death and taxes. Your homily about womens' shopping seems to assume I love paying Adobe upgrade costs because there's a discount. You are hallucinating.

The fact is that QI is not Adobe, is not in a position of market domination except in the niche area of printing. It's just my opinion, nothing more, that it is ill-advised to hang QI's hat on RAW processing and that the user base will follow. Some will, and that's fine. But those who want to print, and only print, won't find any significant advantage in upgrading, and may feel slightly miffed that the choice is between the legacy versions which will remain static and deprecated, and a new version which has to be purchased all over again for no other benefit except that it will continue to be developed.

This obviously does not apply to people like you, who clearly want, like and use the Raw processing, and I can see that you would consider it a bargain. The question is : how many of you are there? Raw is very much a minority pursuit and printing isn't.

Since you ask, oh yes. I think they're exploitative and deeply unimpressive. See http://tonysleep.co.uk/blog/photoshop-cs2-on-ebay


Quality seems to matter less than hype in photography! If you've used 'em, ACR and LR are decent but not the best RAW converters, though they are slowly improving. What they have going for them is a gigantic marketing snowball, not ultimate quality. People just assume they must be good but there are several RAW converters that IME can do a much better job. There is always a downside too, whether it's usability, or pernicious upgrade costs (says a sometime Capture One user). There's always a balance of attributes which is quite personal to the individual and how they work, and that alone stops any single prog achieving dominance. I only wish Photoshop had such vibrant opposition.

On the basis of a try-out, I'd rate QIU Raw processing as capable of very good quality but...  if I have 100 RAW photos to process before bedtime I am not going to use QIU. "Refine" is clever and a better tool than the equivalent methods in many other RP's, but anything that needs filters is a world of workflow pain. It's not for no reason that the more usable RC's have evolved background batch processing rather than applying every tweak in real time.

I am not rubbishing QIU RP here, simply saying it has a balance of attributes that don't suit me.


I really cannot imagine why you think that I like or bought LR, or that I spit on QI. Neither are true. I dislike LR a lot. It strikes me as far too clever for its own good, and the Prodig list is daily awash with real and imagined problems with LR catalogues, LR and PS CM issues. No thanks. And I think I made it very clear that I regard QI as without peer as far as printing goes. FGS man, I like QI, have been using it for years and recommending it. At least half a dozen people have bought it because I've told them they're idiots to try printing photos any other way.

All that I am expressing here is personal bewilderment about the strategic thinking behind QIU.  Attempting to ride two horses at once usually is a bad idea. The printing model is a compromised workflow unless you just want to process selected Raw and go straight to print. If that's what you want, ideal.


Sadly perhaps, that is the lot of the small software company. They don't have the market power to twist users' arms like the majors do.

Along with QI, I am a long term fan and user of iMatch and Vuescan. Both are also produced by solo authors with the same dedication to endless revision and improvement. Each has succeeded in producing niche software that is best in class. Mario (iMatch) charges for major upgrades, whilst Ed doesn't charge at all for VS upgrades. Both, like Mike Chaney, are sort-of  legends among the photo community, their marketing is done by word of mouth - user loyalty and appreciation that has been earned by their unconditional support of what they sell. But if either suddenly decided to deprecate their existing products in favour of new versions that incorporated features few wanted yet had to be bought all over again, I'm not sure they'd be quite as popular.

Interestingly iMatch has basic Raw processing built in. VS has had pretty good Raw processing in it for years. But they don't sell themselves as RP's and nobody buys them for that, they buy then because they are *the* DAM prog, "the" scanning prog. QI is *the* printing prog. There are at least 20-25 Raw processors to choose from, and some are extremely good, with dedicated user bases. QI as also *the* RP, is a much tougher sell.


I think you've read what I didn't write and ended up arguing with what I didn't say. For clarity : QIU is better, nicer to use for its core purpose. This is good. But the improvements are quite small, and have no great impact on print quality which was already the best there is.

I am just - and this is only my personal opinion - perplexed at the discontinuity between old QI and new QI, given that the main difference is that new QI includes a load of stuff that a relatively small proportion of photographers may use or want to pay for. Usually vendors try to seduce their existing users to move along with them. MC seems to be saying, well, you bought a product that is now really a dead end, so now buy QIU which isn't - but look, it does Raw!

It's barely 9m since I u/g to Studio, and that's not currently a pitch with much appeal. I accept that eventually I will likely move to QIU but it will be for the printing. I have at least 8 or 9 Raw processing progs I've paid for and don't use, plus a bunch of abandoned evaluation versions, because they don't do what I want the way I want. I really don't need another one. In this forum there are others asking for a cut-down QIU that only does printing, so it isn't just me. YMMV of course and clearly does. We'll just have to see what Mr Darwin thinks.

Wow - what a lot of discourse! 

I am a new user of Qimage, purchased the studio version months back and then did not use it when I discovered that the images did not snap next to each other the way layers do in Photoshop.  I print on a Epson 9600 with 36" roll paper, I have been creating a new image in PS - usually 10" x 35.75" and dragging flattened images to the new image which of course is for printing.  PS layers snap to each other with precision - I have short cut keys to speed everything up and it is a breeze ... except that PS can have problems while printing so I have to take a break ... so I took another poke at Qimage.

Well guess what, even though images don't snap to each other for quick manual placement there is a command buried half way down in the context menu to auto sort the images for best placement - it seems that the sort list to the right of the size drop down list doesn't do that ... who knew?

Yes, I am implying that the user interface is quirky.  My first impression of Qimage design philosophy = "If when explained, and with a little practice, if the software is easy to use it is golden".  I believe that that is not the way the best software is designed.  I subscribe to the 'it has to feel easy to understand and to use to be golden' idea, no matter how complicated the programing is under the hood.  Sit someone who has never seen the program before - the first 30 minutes of assumptions the new user has is the most important feedback a program can get.  I see QUtimate as an attempt to possibly move in more of the easy to use direction.

On the comment of 19.95 a year for upgrade protection - it is not a subscription, $20 a year to be able to use the software model as I understand it.  If Mike doesn't prove the value then folks will just not pay for the upgrade protection after they buy the program.  He is not guaranteeing himself an income by switching to this model - he will still have to provide value just as he does to get new users of the older qimage versions.  I don't blame him for wanting to get paid for program improvements - for those that want the improvements.  He probably didn't envision Qimage program becoming more than a printing program when Qimage started ...

I purchased the upgrade to Qimage Ultimate, not because I need it.  I can use the Studio version that I own.  But because I am a very strong believer in the importance of efficiently working systems.  Programs typically focus on features, not real improvements in the work flow and user interface.  High five to Mike for giving it a go!

Roger
www.eleakis.com for the curious

Thanks - I will next time ...
Which is exactly my point, I kept clicking in that list to get placement.  That is where placement is controlled, in that general area of the user interface is where I would expect the resorting command to be.  Determining an area of the user interface that is responsible for a function and then not incorporating such an important control of that function in that area is counter intuitive.  I am not putting Qimage down, I am supporting Mike's intention of improving QImage and I am supporting that the program is both exceptional and can use refinement.
No it is not, but my point was that in this area Photoshop handles the placement of the images much more easily than Qimage does.  I would be using PS to print if it did not slow down retouching.
Thanks for the heads up, I will give that a try ...
Definitely not Photoshop!  Photoshop is a toolbox, not an intuitive program!  Actually I have no idea how many features Qimage has as I am just learning the program   I was judging the program based on the primary feature of the program - it's ease of use in printing and that work flow!

Thanks for the heads up and comments!
Roger