Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Hi Guys:

Every time I go to print, the very first thing I want to know is the existing image size.

Right now I just go into Photoshop and open and inspect the image. Once I know the image size I go into Qimage and do all the rest. But I do not see where I can do this in Qimage. Can anyone clue me in.

Thanks.

Tim G.

Hi Tim, welcome.

I'm not really sure of the question you are asking.
If you want to know the image size (Pixel dimensions) simply hover the mouse over the thumbnail and the HOTBAR at the bottom of the screen will show image size, file size, and a lot more.

You can also Right click the thumbnail and select Display Image INFO.

The reason I am not sure of your question is that I wonder why that is so important.

For example, if I choose to print a 5 x 7 or 8 x 10 or any size, as soon as I place the image into the queue, I get a PPI readout which is very valuable.
If you were not printing, but wanting to downsize for emails or web sizes, then you need only to Right click on either selected thumbs or Right click in the upper preview panel of the queue, and select Make Email or Web copies and select the pixel size.

Let me know if I missed your question.
Fred

Thank you Fred.

I should have given you more information. My file sizes vary wildly! They can range from a standard 10 megapixel image to a 36 megapixel image to a 25 image panorama that can extend several feet. So I want to know what the file size is in inches at 300 dpi. That way I have a relative idea of how big the paper has to be and how far I can go in printing big. I print up to 44" wide. I have my own limitations on how big I am willing to blow things up or how tight I am willing to crop.

I also do a lot of small prints too, so often I look at an older image and forget how big it is. I know pixel dimensions can get me there but I look at lots of images and a quick way to see pixels and inches together, similar to the way Photoshop does it with the Image Size... command is important to me.

So pixels with inches and resolution is what I want to see at a glance. Make sense?

Qimage can do any and all of what you want.
That 300 ppi requirement; why do you find that necessary when Qimage will optimize the ppi to the size print for you.?

So you can go to CUSTOM print size and select short side is: 44" and let Qimage fill out the long side, or switch that. Tell Qimage the long side of your pano and Qimage will determine the short size.
If you already did some Photoshop interpolation to 300ppi, and you want that 300 maintained, easy to do.
Again, in Custom, select Original size, and follow instructions.
Tell Qimage you want 300 ppi and check override.. If the 300 is embedded, then no need to override.
It's all pretty straight forward after you have seen the videos.   http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/learn.htm

In all cases, you need to do no more than select the size print, and put the image into the queue. Everything is done.... proper interpolation and ppi to make the best print!

In my previous reply, I explained how to see the pixel dimension and file size (hover the mouse over the thumbs) so that should be covered.

Fred

It sounds like Qimage cannot tell me the size of the image. I know how to do everything you mentioned. Thank you.

But the very first thing I want to know is how big the image is as mentioned earlier.

Can it tell me that?

I don't think we are talking about the same thing!
Size of the image is in pixels... right?
Horizontal width in pixels and vertical height in pixels, right?

If you want something else please explain.

If you want to see the pixel dimension, you can either hover the mouse pointer over the thumbnail and read the hotbar, or Right click the Thumbnail and select Image Info.

See snaps attached

My reading of it is that Uncletim is prepared to allow some interpolation but sets his own limits.  He uses 300dpi as a benchmark to assess very rapidly how large he can print.  Qimage does not provide that information but wouldn't the file size and/or dimensions in pixels be at least as useful a guide?

As a matter of interest, in what program is any re-sizing done?  One is unlikely to be looking at a 44inch wide print from as close a range as a 10x8 so is the extent of interpolation allowed altered accordingly?

Sandy

Thank you so much for the guidance.
I also got an email from an old friend who reads all on here...
He has a similar explanation, although from a different angle.
He showed me this box which he thinks is what Uncletim is looking for.
If this is the case, I told him how to see the resolution (Pixels x, y); on the hot bar and the info box.
That print size he has there is an arbitrary size a person would use if he were going to interpolate,/ upsample to 24 x 14 at 300 ppi.
That is a foolish thing to do in any case. It forces "fake" pixels to be inserted, for no reason, since Qimage and (or the driver) will interpolate again to assuage the printer requirements.
 
Anytime you interpolate twice, you have "LOST" something unnecessarily.

I don't understand "Benchmark" to see how large he can print? That only makes sense if you must print at 300 ppi. Since that's a myth, we come back to basics.
I already told him how to put the 14 as short side, and Qimage will create the long side.....  or put 24 for the long side, and Q will create the dimensions for the short side, but that is for a pano.

The right way is to go to CUSTOM and select your size print!!!!
24 x 14, crop scissors on..... DONE.
Now you either look in the print queue or hover the mouse of the preview panel, and there is the ppi....
From experience, anything from 110 ppi and up will make a fine print.
To prove it, one simply goes into the Page Editor screen and uses the Test Strip tool to have a peek at what a piece of your image will look like on a 4 x 6 test print at the same ppi.
Frankly, that's more valuable that guesswork if you are really concerned about the fine detail in a wedding dress, and what will it look like in a print made at 147 ppi
You print a 4 x 6 crop of a piece of the dress at 147 ppi.

The screen snap of Photo Shop was supplied by my friend Tom

I was told by a very smart man that in this day and age,  believing that the only way to make a good print is 300 ppi, is tantamount to believing that the only way to hear good music at home is with a tube type amplifier.

Seriously, thanks for the help. I do have trouble figuring out the questions. Like playing Jeopardy!
Happy new tear too!

Fred

That is an urban  myth  ::) and totally out of date, especially when printing with QU
Let's get real here, what PS says the size is for a certain PPI are merely an embedded arbitrary numbers. The image has a real size in pixels and PPI does not come into it until you print with QU.
Back to basics with QU:
QU will print any size you like with any image pixel size you like and tells you the nominal print ppi. Usually > 200ppi is perfectly ok and even down to 100ppi can produce acceptable results.
This is because QU interpolates to the printer native resolution: 720ppi for Epson, 600ppi for Canon etc. That assumes the driver is set (from QU) to "finest detail" or equivalent.
The interpolation algorithm used is superior to anything else other programs may use.
So you see, the nominal ppi resolution for a print size can often be ignored, allow QU to "walk the talk" and print the the highest quality possible from the original image resolution.
I suggest you guys read the web site information here http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/technology.htm (http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/technology.htm)  ...
... and forget what other programs lead you to believe about how to print and allowable resolution. QU superseded all that years ago.
Terry

Hi Tim,

If you do 'ctrl I' over a thumbnail, you get the info box for the selected thumbnail. It shows the image resolution in Pixels. You can move over other thumbnails, and the info box shows the info for that image. Now, since QI is a better print engine than in PS, you may find that it prints pretty good at 100ppi - you can try it for yourself by selecting a thumbnail, and dragging it into the print queue, and adjusting its size in the page preview screen (or some other method) and you will see that the ppi changes in the print queue.  Print it and see if 100ppi is OK. Then, all you need do, when you 'ctrl I' over the thumbnails is divide the resolution value by 100, to give a quick ball park evaluation value of printability  ;).

I think that in general, when printing with QI, it is usual to select the size of print and let the ppi sort itself out. If you have different sized images with similar names, then you need to get an idea of which will be suitable for printing, so you need a 'rule of thumb' for the thumbnail images. For QI, I reckon 100 will be good enough.

Best wishes,

Ray

Hi Ray & others,
I don't think PS has a "print engine" and like most applications it dumps the data onto the driver and you hope for the best  :o
It seems those who have used PS a great deal have problems in understanding the simplicity of using QU for printing and, as you said, "select the size of print and let the ppi sort itself out", or rather Qimage sort it out.
Users only really need to concern themselves with the finished size of print(s), the page size and their arrangement on the page.
Terry

I think I understand what you're saying. If you have selected original size when you put the image in the queue then when you hover over the image in the queue (as in layed out on the page and not the thumbnails in the folders) it will tell you the dimensions and the current dpi at that given size before qimage gets hold of it and works it's interpolation magic.

I think the problem comes when your page is smaller than the image size you intend to print so you can't physically add a single image to that page without it spanning multiple sheets, and as you were saying that you'd want to know how much paper you need then I assume that the exact print size is currently not known BUT you wanted to use 300dpi as a kind of marker, is this right?

I'm not sure what printer you're using but I use an epson 7900, you meantioned making pretty large prints so I'm hoping you're using something similar? Anyway, the trick I use is to permanently have my page larger than I ever need it. In the driver, set it to roll paper (banner), check 'save roll paper' and then in 'user defined' for the dimensions set it at something longer than you are going to need. I typically set mine to 1 metre in length as I never print larger than about 90cm onto canvas. This doesn't mean that if I print an image of only  50cm in length that I'll end up with 50cm of white space however, with these print settings it only counts the actual printed area, just don't make the mistake of placing your image at the bottom of the page!

If you do this then when you add an image into the queue then you can resize it (drag out a corner if you want to experiment with it) and then when you hover over it it will always show you the current dimensions and the current dpi at that size.

Like was said before 300dpi is kind of irrelevant as qimage will interpolate it to what it should be (360/720 for the epson)but of course nearer 300dpi is better than being nearer 100dpi, rubbish in, rubbish out as they say. Totally depends on the size of the final image, you'll never see individual pixels printing from q but obviously if you start from an image of 100dpi it's going to look very soft by comparison.

Hope this makes sense? Like I said, not sure what printer you're using but regardless, I'm sure you must have a similar setting if you're using something different. It doesn't sound like you are using qimage to make layouts so the trick is make your page bigger!

I think the main point here though, and I know how protective everyone gets of their beloved qimage,  is that regardless of how you want to do it Tim, dpi being relevant or not, Q can do what you are asking:)

Aha, just re-read one of your posts with some details that I obviously missed. So what you want is to be able to type 300dpi into qimage like you do in photoshop and then see what size it will be at that resolution? So I think you're right, qimage won't do that, but like the other guys said it is irrelevant and also wrong as that won't be your printers native resolution anyway.

Jamie

Sure it will.
Just go to Custom and select original size, check Override, and type in 300.
When you go back to teh main screen, Qimage will show you the image size at 300 ppi.

If you want to see the image at your estimated Print size (like 24 x 14) at 300 ppi, that's easy too!

Click FILE, Print to file, set to 24 x 14 at 300 ppi Then Print!
 I now have an image that is 300 ppi at 7200 x 4200  
At least I know what you were trying to do...
Fred

Just an addendum.... because I still don't understand "figuring out the file size", you can save as a RGB JPG, or A print file with the profile embedded, or a TIF...
The Tif, for example is 90 megabytes. The JPGs ar around 7 or 8 for my images from my old Canon.

The purpose of the file at 300 ppi here is when an outside print service requires these specs for their printing set up.

Fred

Thanks Fred, not that useful which is probably what caused the confusion but now I know. haha

cheers

Okay, let me explain my work flow.

Two days ago I was looking at a 3 shot pano of Lower Calf Creek, each frame 36 megapixels.

I was wondering how big this image was natively. To me that means how many inches is this image at 300 pixels per inch. I try to print at 300 ppi. That image is 7031 x 11087. Now I know that if I just divide 731 / 300 I will get 23.47 inches. But I do not want to do that for every image. I want that information displayed. I want to work in inches not just pixels. I also know that I do not have to worry about printing at or close to 300 ppi and I can just let the program do it.

So I opened the image in Photoshop and went into the image size command and saw immediately the size in inches at 300 ppi is 23.47 x 36.957. Then I said "Ah ha. I'll just print it at 24 x 36 and it will work fine." But I needed the image size in inches information to do that. So I always have to go to Photoshop to get it. I thought there would be some way to see the size in both pixels and inches at 300 ppi without going out to Photoshop.

That is all I want. And I do intend to keep working that way. Not by looking at an image and starting by thinking about how big I want to print it. This is how I work. This is actually a very simple question. Can the program show file size in inches at 300 ppi (or some density) and pixels? I do not see that it currently does this.

And thank you guys for trying to help me. Happy New Year!

Tim G.

OK Tim....
Would have saved a lot of time, although I have nothing else to do anyway, if you would have said the above.  ;D

Ok Now look at  this scenario!

I have a stitched image of 3 shots making a pano... OK so Far?
That's your set up.
I have my image of 7031 x 11087......
Now all I do is Click Custom Print, select Original size, check the override box and type in 300 ppi.
Click OK
Now the image appears in the main screen at 300 ppi and the size you mentioned comes with it.

See snap

The lower part shows the 300 PPI and the print size shows at 24 x 14

Same thing

Happy new year and glad we got it all together.

Fred

Thank you Fred.

He wrote that in his second post (#4):

That's the standard way in Photoshop (as long you remember to tick off 'Resample Image').
I dont see nothing wrong in this. If you always use 300ppi, you will get quickly the feeling how long/wide the print will be. The final print size is a different thing, as he wrote.

/fox

I fancy you are putting more restrictions on yourself than necessary.  Re-sizing methods are very good and accommodate far beyond a few % changes (eg from 23" to 24").  Almost all of us decide what size of print we want and unless the interpolation needed is huge, we just go ahead.  Others can suggest better than I what interpolation factors still produce decent results. Note that a 40"x60" picture is going to be viewed from a little distance away so there will be forgiveness on extensive interpolation - or a lower dpi.

All this means you need no more than a ballpark figure (and a very big ballpark at that) to determine what size (in inches) you can print.  If you really want to stick with 300dpi as guiding your print size you will be sufficiently accurate with mental arithmetic eg 7031/300 = a bit over 20 and 11087/300 = just under 40.  That's miles more accurate than you need to be. As others have said, 300dpi is a bit of a fiction anyway.

Qimage reads what your particular printer prefers as its dpi and exploits that eg 240dpi, 720dpi etc. So, you are highly unlikely to be printing at 300dpi anyway.

Sandy