Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Hi,

I think there's a problem with the way drag and drop resizing is working. It should work according to the value of the Center print placement option. For example, for a single image, if I have selected Center, the dotted image frame showing the effect of resizing when dragging and dropping should extend in both directions from the center. The dotted frame should always remain centered if the image is centered. This would allow me to see, when the rulers are visible, what will be the actual value of the margins after resizing. For the kind of job I'm doing, I'm more margin-oriented rather than being image size-oriented.

The way the drag and drop resizing currently works forces me to calculate what the image size should according to the margins I want.

Thanks.

Pat,
If you click the Size Location Tab in the Page editor screen, you will get the margins for all four sides and they change as you change the size.
I left it metric for you.
See snaps. Remember to move the scroll bars at the bottom to see the right side too.
39.7 on both left and right and 23.3 top and bottom margins.
Before resizing, snap 041, 22 mm left and right, and 10 for the top and bottom

Even easier!  Type in the margin you want on the left. Then you drag the corner of the image until the right is the same. Click the center button, and you are all set.
Easy Peasy...
Fred

Fred,

Thanks for the details and for your time.

However, this is not what I'd like to have.

1. The margin fields are not updated while I'm dragging with the mouse. I'd like to release the mouse button when I see that I have reached the desired value for the top or left margin (assuming the image will remain centered). The value indicated in the ruler for the margin is wrong because it will be changed once I have released the mouse button.

2. Assuming I want the top (and bottom) margin to be say, 20 mm, if I enter say, 20 mm in the top margin field the image will no longer be centered (although the Placement field in the Document area still - wrongly - indicates "Center"). Same for the bottom margin field. If I click on Center, the values I entered for the top or bottom margin are disregarded. I think this is not consistent. Since I specified that I wanted a centered image, if I enter a value for the top margin, it is assumed that the bottom margin should be the same. So the image should be zoomed in or out accordingly, keeping the image centered.

The behavior of the Print module in Lightroom is much more consistent regarding this point.

I think you want the numbers to change before you release the mouse, if I understand correctly.

I hope  someone else understands your requirements better than I, I am sorry. I haven't figured out what you might be shooting for unless you want to put margins in and have the print fit into what space is left???
This can be done with templates, but you would have to preset the margins, the paper size, and the location on the paper, and print size.

Good luck
Fred

If that's the case a different approach is required - there's always more than one way to "skin a cat" in Qimage  8)

What I suggest is you set the margins to the size required in the Page Formatting menu. You can access this quickly using the Menu Cheater icon.
Use "Fit to Page" and crop scissors on to fill the printable area; you may then find the image is cropped due to aspect ratio differences.
See screen shot attached below.
1. Page margins menu with additional margins set
2. Page preview showing reduced printable area
3. Page Editor showing total margins & print size
4. Image crop in this example

Terry

Exactly :). This should be possible since QU is already able to update the size related fields on-the-fly.

Thanks very much. I'll give this approach a try.

I think I might have found another approach for you.

I just tried this and it seemed to work.
I put a 20mm white border into the print property and with crop scissor on, set the print size to Fit to page.

It worked perfectly. It centered and has a 20mm border around the entire image and with the border in white it is part of the page.

Fred
OOPs I forgot the snaps

Good idea. Thanks.