I agree that using the PDF format for photographic images is not good - far better file formats are better suited for that.
But, for graphic vector-type images using the PDF format is legitimate (of course, saved in the right way) and is used by graphic designers and illustrators.

The humble PDF is capable of great things - I don't think that's always realised.

I have a client who is a professional illustrator who I print for - not that often, maybe once or twice a year. He will always send me his images in PDF format. The files are always very good quality and totally scalable. I could print them the full 60" width of my printer if I wanted to because they are vectors. (He uses Adobe Illustrator to produce his work)

I don't see QI as a 'Photo printing app' - I see it as an 'Image printing app'. Calling QI a photo printing app is selling it short!

But for me, on the very odd occasion I'm asked to print a PDF I'll just open it up in PS make it the right size and save it as a PSD, it's not a big issue. I would rather Mike spend his time working on something that will make QI even better! (is that even possible? lol!)

Just as an example, the attached image is one of my client's illustrations. it's not a photographic image, but QI handles it perfectly! This image came to me as a PDF.

Why does Qimage have to be just a photo printing app? I understand that it was designed with just photos in mind but it is so useful for printing everything. The only thing holding it back is the inability to handle PDFs directly.


We are a photo lab that also does commercial printing. We do all of our wide format printing through Qimage. All of our commercial work comes in as PDFs. These get mixed in with our photo printing workflow. The only difference is that we have to convert them before Qimage will handle them.

We also do a fair amount of Dye Sublimation gift items. This can be anything from phone photos of grandkids on Christmas ornaments to business logo PDFs on coffee mugs. The automatic ganging up and automatic print length in Qimage are AMAZING for this work. The fact that Qimage will gang up assorted sized things that are different resolutions is a BIG time saver.

I know we should probably be using a real RIP instead of Qimage in our shop but we really like Qimage and if it handled PDFs it would be nearly perfect.

I don't know much about programming but, would it be a lot of work to add PDF support?

Sorry Mike.

Tiffs and Pngs are not appropriate at all for logos. Quite often we have to have a raster version of a logo traced into a vector format in order to scale it for quality printing at a larger size.

We have reproduced client's logos on everything from pens to large banners with the same PDF vector file. Anywhere from less than an inch to many feet from the same file. Raster formats like Tiffs or Pngs do not work at all for this kind of work.

The reason I looked at this today is we're getting ready to print a batch of dye sublimated gift cards that we received, correctly, as pdfs. Qimage is so great to batch print these but I have to convert 50 ready-to-print pdfs to a raster file first.

I know you created Qimage for printing photos but it works great for graphics too.

PDF is a CARRIER, and the defacto standard in printing regardless if it is a photo or a document. If you take a file to any place that prints PDF is the standard. It also carries the ICC profile you save. It is an Adobe product, BUT so many open source versions created that it should not be as easy to support as jpeg or tiff. If he were asking to print Illustrator files, I would say he is asking something unique, or InDesign files, or any design making software(although, designs should be OK to print, and PDF is a standard for them to be converted to) I would say Mike is correct. No major gain by adding such. But PDF. Most Adobe files we save as PDF. All photography work that goes to large presses is done in PDF.

Having PDF would be adding more pool of buyers of Qimage no doubt.  I am sure it is available as a software printing engine to add to Qimage. that would be great!!

"no serious photographer is going to print or submit photographs via PDF"

ALL serious, pro, or what have you... or ANYONE who goes to print in a magazine, or calendar, or anything offset press, and that would be ALL work that gets work published get submitted to print in PDF format.

There is no if, and, or but about this.

If we want to see how our photos look like before we send it off, it only makes sense to see it in the format we submit the work in.

I would pay for an upgrade copy if it had PDF as a format able to print, regardless of how it limits my auto arranging.

_Magazines, calendars, press.  All documents, none of which have "photo quality" as a high concern."
Color accuracy is a big concern. And PDF's I print are usually SWOP/CMYK, so its always iffy if the printer will print it right using the ICC or its own. Setting it in the printer can be a issue at times.
Maybe something I should learn better to do.

QImage gives me more versatility in printing, and you mentioned in previous post, but Would a PDF file not allow for multiple PDF files to be printed together?

I have 2 different RIP softwares that  I use for work. At home I can afford the crazy $ it costs, but they do rasterize and mimic the press.

Most of my work goes to press, so its why I would find it helpful. Stay in one print app to manage all printing. I have a laser printer to manage "Documents"

I guess it maybe too much a hassle. Thought it would be worth asking, requesting, and most importantly understanding more. I think I got the gist of your reasoning, which I don't think should limit this file type. being so commonly used by art and designers, photographers. But everyone has their reasoning.

This is a problem for me as the developer too.  That's why I was trying to get a handle on how (and why) people who want to print photos are using PDF.  Often times I find that people will ask for something and not tell you the reason and once you find the reason, the solution isn't what they proposed and there is a better way.

Anyway, when dealing with PDF in something like Qimage, I (and the software) will have to deal with the same pitfalls.  The document is not a photo and you want to get a photo out of it.  So... the first question is, if a photograph is embedded in a PDF, it is not a vector graphic so what is the native resolution of the photo inside the PDF?  Can I extract the photo from the PDF at its native resolution and not be forced to pick a "resolution" and risk damaging the file with poor quality (Adobe) resampling?  Or does the user have to give a resolution (like 300, 600, etc.) and hope that's enough for the photo and hope that PDF resampling isn't a lot worse than what Qimage offers?  Was the person who created the PDF mindful (and experienced enough) to embed the ICC profile for each photo when they put it in the PDF?  If the PDF contains multiple photos, does each one (potentially) have a different embedded ICC profile?  Assuming someone did it right, how does Qimage extract all the photos at native resolution WITH the embedded profile for each?  PDF is not an open format (see below).

These are not trivial questions/issues that arise because PDFs are just not the right place to store photos for printing and there may be many compromises particularly if people are submitting PDFs to you: their motive is to produce a document... not photos.  So did they do all the above properly?

And then again, the bottom line is that PDF is an Adobe abomination of a document format.  Like everything else Adobe, PDF is not open source and you are limited to what Adobe wants to give you as far as PDF specs.  So why not use Acrobat if you are dealing with PDFs because that's the Adobe product designed to handle this Adobe document format?

People serious about their photos and wanting high quality prints of them are never going to embed them in a PDF for the above reasons (and I probably missed some).  Magazines and other full-page document formats are a different story: PDFs work well for those.  But again, why wouldn't you just use Acrobat which is designed for documents if you don't want to print photos but rather designed pages?

Regards,
Mike