Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

I've been trying to set up a new DNP DS40 printer on the work computers, but there are some problems with printing through Qimage. When I print without any cropping it works fine, and it has no problem printing or cropping an image that has not been rotated. However, if I rotate the print, as soon as I crop the image stretches dramatically beyond the edges of the paper, as if the short sides of the paper had lengthened.

I've tried with and without borders, disabling advanced printing features, reinstalling drivers, all to no effect. Since I haven't been able to replicate this effect in other programs, is this an issue with Qimage or am I doing something stupid?

If you rotate the image outside of qimage, and then print with qimage, I guess that would work Ok - just a suggestion for a quick fix if you'd not done so already.

Hi Rob,
Do you see this in the Qimage preview and/or full page editor, or  just with the print?
A screen shot would help, Qimage page preview and the job properties.
It sounds like something odd going on with the driver. I suggest you check there no odd sort of setting in the driver hidden somewhere.
You could re-set Qimage from Help just in case something is corrupted.
Terry

Well, I've also tried using picasa and that seems to have a problem with dimensions too - the page appears long and thin in the preview, and it appears to be stretching the long, thin image to fit the wider page when it is sent to print. So Qimage doesn't seem to be causing the problem, just suffering from it.

@rayw:
Yeah, that does the trick, the problem is when you want to print two different formats from the same image you have to go out and make a second image with the crop applied, which does the job but isn't ideal.

@Terry-M
It appears on the preview, in the page editor and in the print, I've attached a small comparison with the same image before and after rotating. I've reset the Qimage settings, but since it seems to be something up with the printer or drivers it makes no difference that I can see.

UPDATE: it seems to be a problem with windows, I wish I could say I'm surprised. Time to poke it with a stick until it starts working, I suppose.

I'm not sure about your printer, but in some there is a default in the printer setup(driver) of 'fit to page', which will stretch or shrink various dimensions. Probably time to rtfm  :(

(At least you've narrowed down as to where the problem lies - I'm not thinking it is windows, but the printer settings.)

Best wishes,

Ray

I think there's something odd going on in the driver too. Is there a portrait-landscape setting - would that make a difference?
Rob, why do you need to rotate and how are you doing it? Are you trying to make a landscape print cropped from a portrait image?
You can do this in the Full Page Editor, maybe you are doing this already.
I've attached some screen snaps from Qimage to show what I mean.
The other way would be to crop to to landscape in the batch filter.
Just throwing things out which may possibly help   ::)
Terry

Rob,
One other thing to check.
What print size is Qimage reporting in the queue panel below the thumbnails?
Is it what you have specified, tell us the numbers?
Terry

@rayw
can't find any settings to fit the image to the page. I think it's windows because another computer with an older version of windows doesn't have the same problem.

@Terry-M
The print queue is reporting the size correctly.

The reason I need to rotate the images is that there are often a mixture of portrait and landscape shots that are to be printed on a contact sheet. Since Qimage recognises the orientation from the EXIF data, some images will either rotate to better fit the format of the contact prints, or they will have to remain unrotated and in a much smaller size. I'm currently looking to see if there's an easy way to batch edit the EXIF orientation data.

There is a Custom setting for Fit to Page that is a;lso near the bottom of the size drop-down list, see attached screen shot.
Do you mean you want portrait shots to be on their side?
If you have a square template for a contact sheet all the contacts on the page will be the same size. See attached sample.
However, if you want every one to be "landscape" so portrait shots are on their side then I think you will need to turn off auto rotation in your camera or, as you say, edit the exif data.
To do the latter the best software is ExifToolGUI. It uses ExifTool, a Command line program but provides a GUI fore easy use, and it's free.  :)
See http://freeweb.siol.net/hrastni3/foto/exif/exiftoolgui.htm
The link in there to download ExifToolGUI and ExifTool (which you need) with all the instructions.
See screen snap for part of GUI, not very clear but give the program a go, it's very useful.
Terry

Yes, I usually have the prints on the contact sheet all the same size.

I have worked out an automated system to alter the exif data using Jhead and a batch file. exiftool looks more flexible than jhead, but there's a lot more reading to do first ;)

Rob,
It's really easy, little homework is required when used through ExifToolGUI.
Terry.