Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Hi, Mike

I have 3 panels here of gator board at 18x24 each. I would like to create 3 panels of one image (3 columns) vertically. The image is on screen but when I go to multi panel print it flips the image 90 degrees. My printer is a Canon P2100 (24") roll paper I cant seem to get it to appear in portrait mode from any of the settings?

Images are always displayed in their original orientation because images are presumed to be "upright" as shot (or edited)... which means the original image of that tree is laying down on it's side as shown in the multi-panel print dialog.  You can still do the job with the image rotated but if you want it to appear rotated differently in the multi-panel print editor, double click the image to open it in the editor and then apply 90 (or -90) rotation to fix the orientation of the image.

Regards,
Mike

Ok I rotated it but I cannot get 3 panels of 18x24 each. I already have the 18x24 boards so want to glue each panel onto each board making up 3 panel boards of 18x24 each?

What am I doing wrong here? What are the settings for what I want?

24 inch roll paper

I don't know what you're doing so there's no way for me to say where you are going wrong.  The only way you wouldn't be able to get three panels of 18x24 is if that doesn't match the final print size.  I have no idea what you are doing so 3 panels of 18x24 could either be a print size of 54x24 or 18x72.  If your print size isn't either of those sizes, three panels of 18x24 is not possible because it wouldn't be divisible by 3.

Have you watched the video?
https://youtu.be/2GKIAm2FLS4

Regards,
Mike

Hi, Mike no luck if I want 3 panels of 18x24 each then the print size should be (18x3)=54x24 then 3 columns and 1 row and I dont get 3 vertical panels of 18 x24?

Does all of this depend on the printer and settings being set up for a 24x54 user defined? or perhaps the image is not large enough to make 3 panels?

And yes I have watched the video multiple times.

Of course not.  You are printing panels so the panels you are printing are 18x24 and the only requirement is that your printable area be at least 18x24.  So if you look on the main window above the live view where it says "Page:", it has to be at least 18 wide and 24 inches tall or the reverse: 24 inches wide by 18 inches tall.  Panels are the least common denominator so if your printer can't print at least 18x24 on a "page" (sheet or roll), you have to reduce the panel size to something it can print.

So assuming you have a printer that is capable of printing 18x24 prints on one sheet of paper (or a roll), you can print three 18x24 panels that add up to a total of 54x24:

• Under print size, make sure the crop button is turned on.
• Just enter 54x24 up top as the "Print Size".
• Click on the cols/rows tab and enter 3 columns, 1 row.
• Click the "Generate" button.

You said you are using a 24 inch roll so you realize you probably can't get exactly 24 inches across without doing borderless (no margins) which isn't something you want to do with multi-panel prints.  So if you can't get the full 24 inches across, you may need to just make the length of the paper on the roll something greater than 24 inches so you have 24 inches of length to print with: then the panels will fit 18 inches across the roll rather than trying to squeeze 24 inches onto exactly 24 inch wide paper... but you can still do it.  Just keep in mind the prerequisite: that "Page:" size listed on the main window has to say 18.0 inches or greater in one dimension and 24.0 inches or greater in the other.  Otherwise it is impossible to print 18x24 panels.

Regards,
Mike

Hi I tried this and it still does not work so I assume there is no more to try?

If it doesn't work, you didn't follow the steps or your page size is less than 18x24.  I'm not going to continue trying to guess what you are doing with no information about your specific setup so if you want further assistance you are going to have to create a video or screencast showing your steps.

Regards,
Mike

Ok I have recorded the screen steps and as a recap I have a photo but need to get 3 18x24 prints out of it. I have a P2100 so 20" is what I set up for on the roll. I know I am doing something wrong so here is the link for my steps.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JQRExhuCRn-MRWRN7rznV3yiC0dJakpX/view?usp=sharing

Thanks Mike

Thanks.  That helps: now I can see what you are doing.

Look at the top of the multi-panel UI: your print size is set to 19.76 x 26.35.  So when you enter 3x1, it is splitting up 19.76 x 26.35 into 3x1 panels.  It did that correctly because you can see all three panels side by side on the live view when you are done.

So you're skipping the step in my instructions where you specify 24x54 as the print size.  It needs that final print size so when you enter 3x1 it knows how big to make the panels.

Regards,
Mike

Thanks for multi panel print feature and video that shows how to use it.

Using six 11" x 17" plain paper sheets, it created a perfect 29" circle I need for a project.

I think what I am trying to do is using an image which is 19.76x24.05" and trying to split that up into 3 18x24" panels. To me this would mean the image would have to be much larger in physical size in order to get 3 18x24 panels out of it. I do get 3 panels but they are only between 4 and 6" wide by 24" high. I don't think Qimage can make these 3 18x24" panels needed out of a 19.76x24.05" image?

I think Mike told you in earlier reply ... your image should be 54" x 24".

I created my 33" x 34" in Photoshop

My printer and print settings.

The multi panel settings.

Thanks, I know I asked a question about this several posts ago about whether this needs to be resized first in another program? I resized the image in Affinity Photo to 54x24 then bring the image into Qimage. However I cant use 54 x24 although my printer has a 24" carriage I should not print to the edge so perhaps 54x22?

The other issue is it still does not come out with a 18x24 panel and it puts the original image on the sheet as well. Do I need to use a custom size in the printer driver itself?

You don't need to do any of that.  Your image is not 19.76 x 24.05: images don't have "size".  They have pixels.  Qimage can print any image at 54 x 24 with 18x24 panels.

I know this is my third time saying this so maybe the third time is the charm, but all you have to do is type in the print size you want at the top of the multi-panel UI.  In your video, the print size shows as 19.76 x 24.35 because that's the most recent print size you used.  Just type over that and type 24 x 54.  Then if you split it 1x3 (which makes the most sense to me if you want the final to be three 24x18 panels), you'll get three 24x18 panels.

And yes, you can print 18x24 panels on your 20 inch roll: Qimage will automatically turn the panels so the 18 inch side prints across the width.  It has to; it can't print 24 inches wide on a 20 inch roll.

The bottom line is if you followed my 4 steps I posted on September 23, it would work perfectly.  Not sure why, but you keep wanting to skip the step where I said Just enter 54x24 up top as the "Print Size".  Without that, Qimage has no idea what final size you want and it'll just assume you want that last-used 19.76 x 24.35 size.

Mike

I don’t think you have to do anything with printer driver.

QImage - Printer and Settings
Choose your Printer
Choose your Media Size - I’m guessing yours will say 24” roll

I should also point out that the multi-panel print UI is super versatile so you can go at this from any angle.  You can give it the final print size and rows/cols like I've been instructing, BUT...

You can also specify the panel size and rows/cols and Qimage will automatically calculate the final print size.  Like this:

• As always, we make sure the crop button is enabled on the top left of the multi-panel UI
• Click on the "Panel Size" tab and specify a panel size of 24 x 18 by entering 24 in width and 18 in height
• Click on the "Cols/Rows" tab and specify 1 column and 3 rows
• Click "Generate"

Since Qimage knows you want 1x3 panels of 24x18, it'll automatically calculate the final size of 24x54 and you'll get your three 24x18 panels.

The key is, there are three parameters involved when making any multi-panel print: (1) size of each panel, (2) number of panels in rows/cols, and (3) the final print size.  The UI is set up so all you have to do is specify any TWO of those three parameters and it can (and will) calculate the third.

Mike

Ok here are my steps. First off I apologize for all the effort you have given but something is not right.

1. Resized image to 54x24 using Affinity Photo
2. Brought that image into Qimage as a 54x24 image and shows that size when you hover your mouse over the image.
3. Setup the multi panel with crop on, set panel size to 18x24 with 3 columns and 1 row and now the print size is now shown to be 54x24
4. Now I generate this and do not get 3 panels of 18 wide x 24 height.

Please confirm my steps are correct? If so then I am including some pics to show the green lines as horizontal not vertical as I need. I am also including a pic of how I want to print these panels in this type of format with one on top of the other on my Canon 24" printer

Another pic

Last pic

You got it right with this one and if you had clicked "OK" to accept those three panels pictured by the green boxes (you cut off the "OK" and "Cancel" buttons but they are there past the bottom of your screen shot), you would have gotten the three panels in the queue:

(https://ddisoftware.com/tech/qimage-ultimate/multi-panel-print/?action=dlattach;attach=12082;image)

Did you click "OK" on that dialog?  If so, it would have added the three panels to the job.  It looks like you had been fooling around and added multiple copies of the image before doing the multi-panel print so the multiple panels could have been on subsequent pages.

And again, there was no need to resize the image in another program.

Mike

You don't seem to understand that Qimage is showing you the only way you can split that image into three 18x24 panels: three panels top to bottom (1x3).  You said you want a final image that is 24 wide by 54 tall: that's one across (24) by 3 tall (3*18).  You can't take a vertical (portrait) image like that, print it at 24x54 keeping the portrait look, and split it vertically three ways and get three 18x24 panels left to right.  Look at the image on screen.  It's already vertical so if you print that at 24x54 and you split it three equal ways left to right, you'd end up with three equal panels of 8x54 inches each.  Not 18x24.

Mike