Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

...it makes me happy all over again that I'm a Qimage user.

http://photocamel.com/forum/photography-talk/146837-how-does-pixel-size-equate-physical-print-size.html

There's some good info in this thread...most of it "old hat" to Qimage users, I suspect.  But it turned into something of an argument about uprezzing, interpolation, etc.  I cannot believe how some photographers jump through hoops just trying to print large at the proper resolution.  Just sample some of the posts in that 10-page thread and you'll see what I mean.

However, I must admit that at least a few posters in that thread are aware of what all Qimage users know:

"Hence, optimal results are obtained by resampling the image to the native PPI that your intended printer uses, then applying Sharpen or USM, and then printing."

But even that's much more work than we have to do, of course, considering that all we have to do (after editing) is set the print size, hit "print," and go for coffee.

Incidentally, a few months ago, more or less by accident, I came up with a "plain paper" test of Qimage's ability to improve a low-res image.  See the editorial cartoon at the link below:

http://robertariail.com/2011/04/10/abstract-expressionism/

(If you saw a map of my congressional district, you'd know why I like this cartoon.)

It's a small, low-res file, of course.  Just print it on plain paper, fit to page, using the Windows photo-printing wizard or the equivalent.  Then print it from Qimage on plain paper, with interpolation.  The difference is obvious even on plain paper.  Quite enjoyable to show the results to the heathens.

Hi Owen,

Got a phone call the other day asking for some help; prints not sharp and clear; on an Epson 7800; 20 x 30.
This gentleman was a long time user of Qimage.
I tried to follow as best as I could on the telephone, and it came down to something like this:
I put my images through Lightroom, and make my adjustments. Then I save my work as a TIF and when it asks what size, I select 300 ppi.

Next I want to crop my image. So Proceed to crop it as I see fit, and again save that as a Tif, again selecting 20 x 30 at 300 ppi.

My prints are not sharp even though I sharpened them in Lightroom and they looked good.  What am I doing wrong?

I told him to put the original into Qimage Studio, (he was still using Studio) and me being blind to the image, I walked him through a little sharpening using USM.
Being blind to his image I could only suggest that he use a 5 radius and a 50 strength....
At this point, he told me that he used 5, 7. 75 (if I remember his sequence) on *all* his images in LR.
Some were good and some were not, but he read about it, and those were the recommended settings!! (For any image????)

With the image in Qimage and the print size set to 30 x 20..... we had a ppi of 120.  *"That's too low! They all say I need 300"*

Make the print. I'll wait!!

OMFG   (No translation available) That was his comment.

The print was gorgeous (his words)

How come?

How many times did he interpolate (add fake pixels) to that image?

Qimage interpolated one time....

This was a man, a very nice man, who has called before, that was caught up in all the guru hype from others.

So when you thank Qimage for all we learned over the years, I have to put in a plug for Mike who created Qimage and who keeps teaching us the right way to work our pictures.

Fred

Yes, one poster in that Photocamel thread was still using the method of uprezzing 10% at a time until he got to the "recommended" resolution.  Someone else explained that uprezzing should now be done in one step and suggested a $200 piece of software...which you could get for as little as $100 on sale!  (How exciting! Just $100 for a program which interpolates?  Such a deal!)

The good news is that most of the Photoshop users who were posting in that thread are aware that interpolating in Photoshop is not the optimum solution.  The bad news is that I've seen more than one person here on the Qimage forums say that Photoshop users--even after a demo--refuse to believe that there's a $90 printing utility which will do something that Photoshop can't do.

Originally, years ago, I bought Qimage because it made it convenient to print multiple images per sheet.  That was the only feature I cared about.  I printed everything at the default parameters.  Did that for years, all very routine.  I literally didn't know I was getting superior results until I printed a Sony Mavica photo from outside of Qimage.  A year or two later, when I knew what I was doing, people looked at my 8½x11 borderless prints from my 4mp Canon G2 and said (#1) "Well, that can't be digital," and (#2) "You printed this yourself?"  Yes, very routinely--and that was when my photo printer was a Deskjet 9650.


+1, right on, amen...but let's not forget Terry, a guy named Fred, and all the other evangelists on these forums who are eager and willing to share their knowledge.  I know that the benefits I've received here far outweigh my contributions.

Got to run, have a few photos to print.  Just routine stuff, with no doubts about the quality of the output.  Almost boring, really, with the program I use.

Using what??

:-)
Fred

Yeah, like I'd tell YOU!  ;D