Qimage Demo

[DeanChriss]

First, I hope everyone has a great New Year!

This evening I thought I'd give Qimage a try, so I downloaded the demo and pointed it to a folder with some image files in it. It displayed thumbnails for the PSD files and for some TIFF files, but other TIFF files just showed a white rectangle for the thumbnail. All of the TIFF files are less than 200 MB, and PSD files of similar size are displayed by Qimage, so I doubt size is the problem. If I drag one of these blank thumbnails over to the paper it takes up space as it should, but there's no image shown there either. I've heard great things about this program but so far it won't even display the files I want to print!  

Ideas?

[rdonson]

Take a look at how you saved the TIFFs in Photoshop.  If you used a Pixel Order of "Per Channel" instead of "Interleaved" that could be the problem.

[j-land]

Qimage also doesn't like it if you have any additional channels (i.e. masks) saved with your tiff.

[Rhossydd]

Yes, this has been a problem for Qimage users for very many years.
In addition to the other issues mentioned above, Qimage also fails to display Lab colour images and probably several other formats too.
The author, Mike Chaney, will say that it’s other programs creating bad files, but that’s rubbish as so many other image browsers can handle these files elegantly enough.

The next problem you’ll encounter with Qimage is the terrible UI and documentation. Much of it’s functionality is buried into the program, difficult to find and remember.

Despite all this Qimage does have some strengths once you’ve learnt how to use it and if you’re prepared to work with the file formats it understands. Then it can be a productive and useful tool.
However it won’t take much for Adobe to catch up and offer similar features in PS & LR. The image printing in LR3 beta matches Qimage for image quality and convenience now, all it really lacks for me is the ability to easily add custom text to the page, hopefully Adobe will listen and add that soon too.

Paul

[DeanChriss]

Thanks for all the answers. It turns out that these files have channels saved in them. Odd that this is the only program I've happened upon that has issues with that.

Anyway, problem solved.

Thanks.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

The image printing in LR3 beta matches Qimage for image quality and convenience now, ...

Hi Paul,

Do you have a comparison of quality to share?

Cheers,
Bart

[Rhossydd]

Do you have a comparison of quality to share?

I hadn’t done any direct comparisons of the same image at the same size from both programs before now. Subjectively Lightroom’s prints since the sharpening options were added are perfectly acceptable, so it’s often easier to print straight from LR.
This afternoon I’ve just done some trial direct comparisons. I could try to post some scans of the prints, but the differences are pretty subtle when looked at a 100% view. Looking at the whole print means more.

I find Qimage, by default, delivers more ‘crunchier’ prints that at first glance appear sharper, but when studied closely can start to look a little over sharpened. You can turn down the sharpening in Qimage, but you can’t go any further than ‘high’ from Lightroom, which I find best for my work.
That might sound in Qimage’s favour, but on close inspection the prints from LR actually seem better. Darker areas retain their detail better from LR. It almost looks like the images in Qimage are more contrasty and take on an almost artificial 3D appearance, whereas the prints from LR look smoother and more natural.
Quite where this tonal difference is coming from isn’t clear, all the printer and colour management settings are the same. It could be as a result of the different resizing and sharpening algorithms or possibly the different colour management engine in Qimage is handling the rendering intent differently.
Overall I prefer the Lightroom prints and think they’re more accurate to what I’m seeing on my screen. I’ll still use Qimage for some purposes as it does have some unique features, but for routine printing Lightroom is easy and convenient.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

It almost looks like the images in Qimage are more contrasty and take on an almost artificial 3D appearance, whereas the prints from LR look smoother and more natural.

That's very strange indeed. The colormanagement should not produce that, it only converts/renders colors. Tonality is not impacted by the resampling either, unless you're downsampling (you can user adjust the anti-aliasing level for that).

I've done lots of tests of different upsampling algorithms, and Qimage is at the top for large output quality and for driving the printer at its native resolution. Last month I produced a 40x60cm canvas from a 1Ds3 file, and it was razor sharp without jaggies or pixellation. Someone thought there was a bit of surface damage, but it was actually a piece of lint in the hair of the subject in the image. Colormanagement was exactly as anticipated.

I may revist LR, maybe even upgrade, but its functionaly is mostly too much of a duplication of other applications I already have.

Cheers,
Bart

[Rhossydd]

The colormanagement should not produce that, it only converts/renders colors.

True, but if the colour management engine Qimage uses(there's no choice as far as I can see) behaves differently to Adobe's in theory that could change tonal reproduction.

unless you're downsampling........I've done lots of tests of different upsampling

I think this is when personal requirements start to influence choice. I very, very rarely need to upsample images, so that aspect of Qimage's performance has no influence on my choice.

I may revist LR, maybe even upgrade, but its functionaly is mostly too much of a duplication of other applications I already have.

The strength of Lightroom for me is that is becoming a 'one stop shop' for digital photography. In one application it matches and frequently exceeds the performance of other software. All wrapped up in a far superior interface to products like Qimage.

Paul