Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

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

v2015.107    Oct 31, 2014

Priority: Low

v2015.107 fixes an issue with the auto-cropping when using horizon leveling in the image editor.

Mike

Since I had to find my old post one how to save an edited image again this AM, and then trying to find it in the weird {Q}Prints folder....  :(

Wish the software had an easier way of saving our altered Qimage files than changing the pull-down to read "Print to File" and then the need again to hit "Print" again to assign it into a folder to save and see it.  Then having to go back in and alter it to "Print to Printer" to send it to the printer.  Seems a lot of wasted effort for a simple "Save image" and "Print to File" makes no sense at all.  You print or you don't, but a "Print to file?"

Seems it would be easier to have a "Save to File" in the initial pull-down menu for a Qimage edited/altered print than going through all the menus to get it to Save an edited image.

Mack

Hi Mack,
I am wondering why you are using P2F to save an image with it's changes?
I would only use P2F if I wanted to save some "print" features like floating text or mats and normally not save to a new image anyway because QU incorporates any raw refine (qrs) and image edit (flt) changes when the image is printed.
If it is necessary to save a separate copy of an image then I would normally use, for a raw image, "convert" from the queue context menu. You can also use the Image Editor and "Save As" or "Save Filtered Image".
Terry

This is not true.


If you want to PRINT with text or mats, just print.!
You don't have to convert that to a Print to File.

You only have to use P2F for emails and making an image for someone else that has mats.

You don't even have to save it for yourself.
Once you have made your print, you can always get it back exactly the same as it was before from File/Auto Job log, select it and OPEN.


Fred

Fred,

You are correct in that I want to hand the image file back to someone so they can get the edited result.   They do not have QU and hand it off to their printer (Who uses Macs.).  They wouldn't know what to do with the side-file QU uses for the image so saving the image as a TIFF works better for the hand back of the image.

It's just that QU has a very obscure way of saving an edited image (to later give away) in the File menu.  I understand "Print" and "Save," but "Print to File" and "Print to Printer" (Very redundant!) just to save an edited image in QU seems very odd and laborious.  Then one has to hit the "Print" button tab to Save the image in yet another pop-up box.  Then locating it in a {Q}Print file when most other software just apply their extension in a "Save image" like _DxO.tif or _copy.tif or _01.tif or even _copy_copy_.tif (or _.psd) as onONe does on multiple edits.  And once done in QU, then one has to go back to check "Print to Printer" to put it back into printing mode.

Something simple like File > Save Image is so much easier than the current incantation and menu footwork.  Just save the image with a _DSC7321_QU.tif extension in the same folder or something.

In my way of understanding QU's File menu.  ???


Now someone will tell me there is a one-step "Save image" button in the Editor somewhere - ugh!  ;)

Mack

Mack,
It isn't as simple as you would think.
There are two factors. They are distinctly different.
One is the image. It is not a print until it goes into the queue, and even then it isn't welded together.
The second item that is totally different from the image is the Print.
We can size a print, crop it, mat border it, add text to it, add other images to it on the same page.... etc.
We slide stuff around we fix it just ready to print, and we PRINT.

Let's say you are making a greeting card or a collage.
Now you want to send this "creation" to a friend. It contains all of the elements mentioned above...
We must now "bake our cake" All the ingredients are in the pan in the proper amounts, but it isn't a cake until we bake it.
So we must combine all our ingredients and do so using PRINT TO FILE.. This new file now contains all the elements of the print.
You can send it, or print it, upsample it, downsample it, change the size, with margins or without.
That's different from Create a Tif or Save As a jpg.
That is for images and their filters to combine.


Fred

Mack,
You have completely ignored what I said in my post #2 on this matter, nor have you said that you actually needed to produce an image with text or mats. As I said there are several other "conventional" ways to save an edited image.
"Print to" is not an unusual concept: PDF software is a "printer driver" so it's print to pdf. Print to file has been in QU from very early days and was introduced to enable users to send images to an external print facility with the right profile and a re-sized image made with QU's superior interpolation. In recent times P2F has been developed to make it more versatile.
So, only use P2F if you really need to include print features in the image.
Terry

Terry,

I'm not using text, mats, collages, greeting cards, frames, or whatever in QU (Your question #2).  That stuff is far too complex for me to dig into on a daily basis, and it isn't in my daily "Just print the darn thing and move on" workflow.  I'll use PS for that stuff as it saves normally to the image (AND QUICKLY!) and not in extra *.flt side files as does QU.  I just use QU for printing and minor print editing that I see from the printer only.  The extra candy mentioned is way too much for me to get involved with.

On the QU editing end, it is laborious to save an image for a client out of QU once printer/editing only functions are applied, no?  A simple "Save the image" without a bunch fly-outs, subsequent pop-up boxes, then needing click "Print" to even save it from another pop-out box, hunt down the folder it went to, then go back in the File menu and change it all back to the default "Print to Printer" stuff is arduous at best - and forgetful too.

There has to be a far better and easier (faster!) way to save an image to hand-off to someone else without going so far deep into the program, and then go back deep to put it back into print (default) mode.  Sorry, but it's getting far to complex for simple functions like print and save with all the fly-outs.

Mack

agreed

Now that you clarified that you never need Print to File, all we need do is explain how to save a picture that you worked on.


So all I have to do is explain how to SAVE AS and you should be happy, right?

While still in the Editor, simply click FILE and Save As....
A box opens to ask WHERE, and what name do you want to give it!!
Do you want a JPG or TIF?
Then it asks what color space you would like to save it in?

Select and OK


It's stickier in Photo Shop

Fred

In PS, I see my image, then I have to go to lower right and OPEN IMAGE.
Then File Save As
Then I have to Name the image and select the file type and colorspace
Next screen either wants compression for JPG or some questions about a TIF save.

What is so very different?

Fred

There's the Ah-Ha! moment!  :)

So the "File" in the Editor is different than what "File" is in the Main window!  That's the trick!  They are set up differently and that's all I needed to know.

I was tearing my hair out with the other way to save an image going back and forth in the Main > "File" window.

All better now that I finally clicked on the Editor's "FILE" header and see it there and a straight-forward "Save as...(TIFF, JPG, etc.)" rather than that obscure Python language "Print to File" in the main one.

Thanks!

Mack

Mack,
It's no trick, just normal Windows, different window, different menu and if you'd read my first post properly, you'd have got there sooner  ::)
Terry

... and it's excellent UI programming to have the SAVE AS drop down on the same screen where you did the final touch up.
Fred

Geeze, no need for the condensation Terry for asking for an easier way!

The way you wrote your first explanation questioned Why using P2F (Which is why I didn't think this was a good way to save to begin with!!!), then pulled in a lot of the 'candy' portions (text, RAW, etc.), then you put the last sentence in the same paragraph explaining how to do it as though it were tied to the former.  That last sentence should have been in it's own paragraph to stand out without all the other Whys? and "If I did this or that" stuff, or ""convert" from the queue context menu" (Say huh?!?).  All I wanted was an easier way to "Save an image" than the current way the program seemed to work.


An easier way to explain it would have been:
____________________________

If you wish to save your edited work in QU, while you are in the "Edit" window where you've made your adjustments, go to File > Save as... (Upper left of that screen) and you can save to TIFF or JPG from there.  No need to try that from the Main window as it doesn't work as easily from there.

The "File" selection in the Editor's window has a different set of options than does the Main window in QU.  <-- This is the key solution.

Hope that helps!
____________________________

Note that nothing else like text, greeting cards, RAW, etc. was needed which convoluted the explanation.  Fred got it in a way that sunk in, although somewhat patronizing too.

Sheesh!  Ask a question around here and one gets blasted.  :o

Mack

Mack,
Let's all be friends, OK?
The reason why our (Terry and my) answers might sound a little annoyed is because you always present your question as a veiled attack on Qimage.
I am not saying that a person is not allowed to gripe about Qimage. On the contrary, that's how a lot of improvements are made.
What I am saying is from about all your previous posts, you rarely ask a clean question.
'What is the easiest way to:"
Anyone know if I can add 6 mat borders to a print?

Instead you attack Qimage before you ask how do I do something.  (See Quotes above)
I am not really concerned if you delight in running Qimage Ultimate blindfolded, but I am concerned that new users will read your posts and believe  what you write before they learn the software.

In my opinion, it would have been easier on all had you explained what you wanted to do....
"I would like to know the best way to make a JPG or a TIFF after I edit the image. (No borders or text)"

So you lead us, who are really trying to help, astray with all the tales of Print to File and back and pressing Print twice, etc etc.
It takes us 4 posts to really figure out what you are looking for.
During the 4 posts, your method is to repeat and repeat your original complaint which was not on point anyway.

By that time, we are frustrated trying to get through to you because you have made up your mind that the fault in is Qimage, and not yours!

Terry is a very nice person and a very smart person... and even puts up with me.

We all learn by asking.   When I don't know the answer, and it's a Q question, usually something to do with a quirky install, I call Mike.

Please, let's all be friends and help one another.

Fred

Fred, I thought my first query on how to save (easily) was clear enough.  You've quoted my frustration later too with Terry's addendums to the simple question.

Terry entered with a bunch of other stuff I do not care about so I responded to clairfy.  I just want an easy way to Save a edited image.  Seems it then went off the rails with you feeding into his tangent stream of thought as well.  Note that I did not even mention things like floating texts, mats, etc.  I didn't even mention any of that, just seeking an easy way to Save a image is all I wanted which seems obscure from the Main window and it is in the Edit one.

My frustration results from making my "Save" into a big production with all the other QU candy I do not use.  Terry's first response was "Why are you doing P2F to save an image?"  Cripes!  That is what I want to avoid.  Seems easy enough, but he took it off the rails and added a bunch of sundry stuff I could care less about.  It took you to come up with an easier way from within the Edit window and that's all that I wanted.

My final "How it should have been done" would have sufficed.  Why you guys entered with all the other sundry stuff to add onto a simple Save was not necessary at all and makes it far more complex to sort through.

"The Edit window has the TIFF and JPG Save to image in there" is all that was needed.  Notice to I mentioned someone may come up with a way to do it in the editor, just I didn't find it until you brought it up - and at which point you also tried to go on making it seem harder in PS too which I understand.

I'm out.


Mack

Looks like this one is solved: if you want to save an image that you are editing, use "File", "Save As" in the image editor.

It helps to remember that QU is software that is designed to handle multiple object types.  In PS, you don't have to worry about that because you have one type of object (an image) and you can open an image, edit an image, save an image, or print an image.  That's basically it: and generally you only open/edit/save/print one image at a time as PS is not a batch processing tool (hence the "File", "Open" mentality... when you open PS, you are already in the image editor).

In QU, we have images, prints, jobs, batch processing, page formatting, borders, mats, floating text, copyright/signature, page background color, database search, and much more.  So the key is to remember where you are and what you are working with.  The print-to-file features are there because sometimes you want to create JPEG's or TIFF's of your pages and/or your prints, so just by the name of the feature, you know that print-to-file deals with print attributes (on the page) and doesn't deal with the image itself.  If you want to edit and save an image, you do that in the image editor.  If you want to edit or change the appearance of the printed page, you use the page editor.

So yes, the file menu on the main window is going to be different from the file menu on the image editor, for the same reason the file menu in Bridge when you use "Browse in Bridge" in PS is different than the file menu in PS: you have two windows open, both have file menus, and both menus are completely different: they are context driven.  On the QU main window, you are using a batch processing and printing tool so the options on that menu relate to batch processing and printing (load job, printer setup, etc.).  On the image editor, the file menu has options that deal with editing an image, because that's what you are doing in that window.

Realizing the difference between image and print objects should help.  If you're looking for a way to save an image you edited, the function you are looking for probably doesn't start with "print to...".  You'd be looking for "image" related tools like Edit Image or Convert Images.  If you are looking for a way to replicate the print as you see it on the page by saving it to a file, you'd probably be looking for "print to file".  And so on.

Mike