Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Hi,

I'm a new member to the Forum.  I'm trying to find out how QImage can help me to get better prints from commercial labs.

1. I do NOT own photo printer or QImage.  I use commercial labs to print enlargements - 16x20, 20x30, 24x36, 12x36, etc.
2. I use CaptureNX2, PS/CS5, PTGui, Photomatix, etc. for digital processing and ColorMunki for monitor calibration.
3. I do "soft-proof" (not the best option!) of lab-printer and my-monitor, if it's available from the commercial lab.

The bottomline: I can never be sure of the print results until I see the final prints (that's probably true in all cases.  But it would be nice to have some degree of confidence of the print quality during the image processing stage)

Question:  In my scenario, how can QImage help me to get more consistent and predictable prints?

Thanks for any suggestions

Let me try.  I don't own a printer.  I take my prints out.
I have found that Qimage has excellent sharpening algorithyms.
It also has an excellent algorithym for increasing the pixel size of a photo.
I have taken 3 MP photos produced by my old Fuji s602z and enlarged them to 16 x 20 inches and some larger.  Colleagues who have a very good sense of image quality enjoyed them very much.  They were not saying this to please me; they got me to set up a gallery exhibition.

While I have been photographing for a long time, I am a novice when it comes to digital printing.

Others will come in and explain this much better than I can.

Best,

Vlady

Hi,
As a start, look at this "learn by example" from the on-line help file.
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/help/lbe.htm#25a

This should give you some clues. You do need some information from your lab as to the resolution they require, the image profile preferred. Sometimes labs will supply a printer profile for you to convert to and embed in the image. It would be helpful to know what printer they use because to old "300ppi" is often not the best.

Can you be more specific about the things that do not come up to your expectation, colour, too bright/dark, definition etc?

Terry

> Terry asked "Can you be more specific about the things that do not come up to your expectation..."

The differences in Brightness and Vibrance between print and screen image - the print is always darker and duller...hence the definition is less clear.  The image in print does not stand-out as it appears on screen.

That will always be the case to some extent because the screen is transmitted light whereas the print reflected light. Also, a print will normally has a smaller colour gamut than a monitor screen. Matt papers will be worse that gloss types.
This can happen when you print yourself; it's usually because the monitor is set too bright. Do you set the luminance value when calibrating the monitor? The "normal" value for a flat screen type is 120CD/sq M. Another approach is to set the brightness to look like a print but it may take several tests to get it right.
Terry

I should add to my message above that when I have the images printed, I have to change the color from RGB to CMYK because the setup is for their HP Designjet.