Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u

v2014.205    Mar 25, 2014

Priority: Med

v2014.205 includes fixes and improvements for the new photo mat features.

See the Photo Mat video here: http://youtu.be/tepZ5B8yT90?hd=1

Mike

Sorry I am a day late and a dollar short, but this was worth waiting for.
(Busy with Dr. appts.)
 
This is so easy and a lot of fun... You can still do the Template on Template mode too when you make special designs for flyers, posters and cards.
(Template on Template... I better not say that with kids in the room)

But if you need an easy way to make a Mat with all the flexibility of designing and cutting your own mat, this is fun and easy.
As the video says, it's a great tool.  I say, it's the difference between driving from my house to Terry's house using a GPS  or a paper road map.

In version 205, Mike added full functionality to the Full Page Editor, and frankly, it's much easier for me in there. Larger image view, and instant verification of sizes and locations on the page.
The secret of the entire procedure is to select the item that you wish to: Add another mat on its outside; or to EDIT an existing mat.
If you train yourself to always select the item before an action, you will have a lot of fun and good results.
Have fun

Fred

Just thought I'd toss in a little exercise to get you to see another little built in!

GROW and SHRINK

See the screen snaps below and you can use Grow and Shrink to reset your starting position of the mat.

Using a 5 x 7 print in my preview screen..........

Screen snap 053 shows where I set .02 inch borders all around with my selector dot in OK to shrink image so mat size is 5 x 7.

Screen snap 054 is showing you that the image size has been downsized (shrunk) so the entire set, image plus mat is 5 x 7.

Screen snap  055 is showing the mouse selecting GROW from the flyout menu.  If Grow is not available in that menu, you forgot to select the image.

Screen snap 056 is showing the results of GROW. It made the Image 5 x 7, and the mat is added (.02 inches on all sides) making the overall 7.40 x 5.40.

So you have effectively changed the results to what you would have got had you selected the lower dot when you started.

There's more to it of course, as you can Grow it and Grow it.... but Terry is far more creative than I. So I expect he will come along soon.

Have fun.

Fred

The Edges/Crop Marks still appear around the photo, not the mat - I've used 'Dashed' option to show it in this Print Preview:

(http://secalis.co.uk/Files/QI2.jpg)

Brian

Brian,
I rarely if ever use the crop marks feature so I'm a little green at it.
Nevertheless, I tried it, and my crop marks appear at the outside of the mat.
One is crop marks and the other is Guidelines
Fred

Fred

I use 'Mark Corners' rather than crop marks to trim prints, and they are still around the photo, not the mat. If you use the original simple border, the marks include the border, not just the print.

Brian

What I do too. I give 0.5mm extra border width + set Mark Corners. Then cutting just within the Mark Corners. That gives minimum waste with multiple images on the print page and the mark lines stay on the print while cutting up to the last side to cut.
The normal crop marks are nice when you cut a ream of paper on a guillotine like in offset printing and the last cut may be 1mm off. Cutting prints from a roll can be done more  precise and faster with Mark Corners.

The Mark Corners stay at the image edges and not at the uneven borders edges. With the even borders settings it works correct.

--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
January 2014, 600+ inkjet media white spectral plots.

Hi

I love this feature, I make my own frames and matts but when I want a cheaper result without looking too much cheaper I use a PS "frame" as a matt (see attached)
and it would be great if Qimage Matt procedure was able to insert the corner lines to give a 3D effect to the matt, sometime I also darken one side and bottom to enhance 3D effect.

BUT this is still a great help as it is and I'm sure Terry or Fred will tell me how to achieve this in the current Qi version.

Thanks again for the greatest software ever written, perhaps excluding Excel:-)

Cheers

Daniel

Bah!  Humbug!   ;)

A "REAL" editor should have a "Sticky Eyedropper" as a fundamental basic tool for editing.  PS has it.  PaintShop Pro X-whatever# also has it.  Even Nikon's Capture NX2 has four "Watch Points" selectable to 1 pixel, 3x3 or 5x5 pixels.  All of them are "stickies."  Move a curve and watch them change.  So much easier than entering in Qimage, writing down the RGB numbers with its "Non-sticky" (memory-less) dropper along with the pixel co-ordinates, edit the curve, and then go back in a read the change one made with the dropper - and good luck hitting the same pixel array twice too!

Makes setting up a linear gray scale or color gradation curve so much easier with the other "REAL" editor stickies.  Sure, Qimage can adjust the curve and colors, just hard as heck as the current eyedropper it uses is not a sticky (forgets the RGB values once moved), and only one point too where the other "REAL" editors have 4.  Five "stickies" would be ideal:  i.e. A black dMax RGB sticky, second step off that black, White dMin sticky, a step off the white dMin, and maybe a middle grey of 128 sticky too.  One could shift the Curve (Third tab in the Editor pane) and watch the sticky dropper numbers change for the final print.  It's a big PITA as it is.

Aside, I use multiple portable USB hard drives for cataloging (large TIFF layered files hitting half GB in size) and yet to figure out what the "Cataloging stuff" is all about since they are in folders on each USB drive.  Same for Lightroom too.  Never use either of them for that feature.  Too many drives and images.  I like my main editor computer clean of debris and old images.


Scrooge's 2 cents.  And yeah, it beats Excel too.  ;D

Hi Daniel,
Well yes, you can do this already with one of the older features: Frame-type Cutouts.
See attached examples.
With the sample you did in PS, all you need do is instead of putting that frame around an image, do it around a pure black (RGB 0,0,0) square or rectangle and save the file at say 1500 pixel size as Name.frame.tif
Copy this file to the Cutouts folder in C:\ProgramData\ddisoftware\Qimage\Cutouts; you select in in the QU image editor.
Checkout the Help on cutouts and frames that explains how transparency is controlled etc.
Because a cutout-frame is stretched around and image, I prefer to make rectangular cutout image, one for land one for horizontal formats; this avoids side being a different width to top & bottom. Use a typical aspect ratio of say 4:3.
With the samples below:
Fm Blk+ShdMatH.frame was made with Serif Page Plus desktop publishing software
Frame GreybevelH.frame was made with PaintShop Pro, as was Frame MetalH.frame.
The advantage of QU cutouts, they are easy to re-use and a separate saved image is not required because a non-destructive filter is used.
Terry

Thanks Terry

I know there would be a way, I should have thought about it but I have
been doing it my way for years and I need to use PS for something.

Cheers

Daniel

Thanks Brian.  That's definitely not right.  I've fixed it in 206: will release later today.

Mike