ImagePrint 9 bug?

[Michael Lloyd]

I sent an email to tech support but I don't expect an answer on Saturday. The last email, sent during the week, took a day but I may have sent it after hours.

I just started using ImagePrint. At the moment I'm not terribly impressed with the interface. I think my prints are better from IP. In fact I know they are. I've done numerous side by side comparisons today. I compared printing from LR IP IP and IP wins.

But... the interface is buggy imho

For instance:

(1) Printed an image from IP.
(2) Noticed that I should have cloned out some limbs so I opened the image in CC 2014 and cloned them out. I saved the file rather than Save As.
(3) Opened IP, opened the file and the change wasn't there. I assumed that I had saved the image somewhere else... but as I said, I used Save not Save As
(4) I rebooted (MAC OSX). When the system came up I opened IP and then the file with the edit. The preview window did not show the edit.
(5) I closed IP, opened Finder, created a Print Folder, and moved the file to the Print Folder. It only exists in the Print folder. Rebooted
(6) Once the machine booted up I started IP, loaded the file... no edit in the preview... I then opened the file in CC 2014 and verified that the edit was there. Image is flattened.
(7) Closed it all down one more time, opened IP, opened the file. No edit... I printed anyway. It printed the first version of the file without the edit... The edited file name has a P appended to it. I did that in Finder. I know that I'm opening the edited file...

For the money... I think that this thing has too many bugs. This is the worst one... I've been on it all day and I've rebooted my Mac to try to figure out what was wrong with it more times than it's been rebooted all year. Sometimes it prints multiple copies... and continues to do so until it's closed down and restarted.

Without bugs I would recommend it. As it stands now... if you're willing to put up with a buggy interface it will give you a better print. It's on you to figure out if the difference and the hassle is worth the money... If all you want is a print, not all kinds of template features and cropping, etc... maybe look somewhere else. I don't need all of that claptrap. All I need is the print functionality. I recognize that someone else will want picture package templates but I'll never use it. LR does that just fine. Seems like that's their focus lately?

[digitaldog]

Man, you should have tried IP when it once ran under OS9, nightmare! Just to install it took days (I'm not joking).
But I agree, better output than the standard Epson driver. Is it worth it? And I agree, the GUI isn't anything to write home about.
I think your analysis is pretty spot on.
Tech support (when you call them Monday) is otherwise excellent.

[Michael Lloyd]

Lol... I just found out that the print for LR "feature" is an add on. All of the template "stuff" comes with it and printing from LR is extra. Really?

[digitaldog]

Lol... I just found out that the print for LR "feature" is an add on. All of the template "stuff" comes with it and printing from LR is extra. Really?

It was LR that weened me off IP in the first place. Yes the dither is better but in the end, IMHO, wasn't worth it. And I found their profiles suffered issues with blue's shifting magenta, not sure if they ever fixed that. It does have some uses. For example, I have a customer with an 11880 and IP can make a much larger print than the Epson driver on Mac OS (it's limited compared to Windows). For that alone, this customer had to use IP or get a PC which he didn't want to do. In the old, old days, before the Advanced B&W mode in Epson printers, IP was the clear tool to produce dead nut's neutral B&W. That's no longer true. If you need to RIP postscript data, IP is darn useful. But with LR's print module, short of those features, IP become less useful.

[Michael Lloyd]

I printed a 4x5 Delta 100 negative scan (in other words the tif file was huge) from LR5, using Epson ABW mode, and from IP today (Epson 4900). I printed 8x10 on Epson 260 sheet paper so it wasn't a rigorous test. There was a slight but easily discernible difference between them. The IP image has better shadow detail.

Maybe when 10 comes out they'll fix some of this stuff and not concentrate so hard on the trinkets and baubles... and allow printing from LR without it being an add on. Talk about disconnected from what's going on in the industry...

[JayWPage]

I have found ImagePrint's technical support to be very good, I've usually received a response to emails within a couple of hours.

Their paper profiles are also very good. I personally prefer that they concentrate their programing efforts on improving the main features rather than the GUI, but there certainly is learning curve to deal with.

I have heard that output sharpening is a feature that will be included in V10.

[gigdagefg]

I am a very active user of IP and have not experienced any of the above issues. I work my images in Photoshop on a well calibrated Monitor and save them to my hard drive. When I print using IP I using their excellent paper profiles, I get exactly what is on my monitor as to color and detail. if I see something in my print that I wish to change, I reopen my image in Photoshop, make a change and save the change on my hard drive with new  nomenclature to assure that I am printing the new image next.
A few times a year, I experience some glitches in the software; i call Imageprint and they instruct me how the fix the situation immediately.
Stanley

[David Ryan Taylor]

I use IP 9 on a daily basis for our printing, and have not suffered any of the bugs you've mentioned either. After doing several comparison tests between LR/PS printing using the standard Epson drivers (with custom profiles) and IP, for our needs, IP is the definite winner in quality and control. I do agree that it is not the prettiest layout, however it doesn't really need to be, in my opinion. It does it's job, and (again, for us) it does it very well. Better ink economy, better detail, hundreds of variable profiles built in/readily available, and the customer support (rarely needed for us) has been great. To each their own of course:) Like most new tools, they take time to get used to - so many people abandon new tools in the first few days and never give them a decent chance (although I can't blame you with the issues you've had:) - anyone remember how frustrating it was to use a Wacom tablet the first time?

[Stefan Ohlsson]

I sent an email to tech support but I don't expect an answer on Saturday. The last email, sent during the week, took a day but I may have sent it after hours.

I just started using ImagePrint. At the moment I'm not terribly impressed with the interface. I think my prints are better from IP. In fact I know they are. I've done numerous side by side comparisons today. I compared printing from LR IP IP and IP wins.

But... the interface is buggy imho

For instance:

(1) Printed an image from IP.
(2) Noticed that I should have cloned out some limbs so I opened the image in CC 2014 and cloned them out. I saved the file rather than Save As.

You can't edit an image in photoshop and then just save it. You should have deleted the image in ImagePrint, saved the edited image in Photoshop and then added the image to ImagePrint again. This become second nature after a while when you use ImagePrint, as I still do. The quality of the B&W is still better than Epson ABW, the tinting functions are in another league. And as a test made by Mark at AArdenburg showed, an ImagePrint colour print will not fade as fast as a print made by the Epson driver if you use x900 printers. ImagePrint uses less yellow, which will fade faster that the orange ink that was added to these printers.

In a print made with Epson ABW you will see some yellow ink dots, which you won't find in a B&W print made in Photoshop. That means that a B&W print will probably also last longer if it's made with ImagePrint.

[digitaldog]

You can't edit an image in photoshop and then just save it. You should have deleted the image in ImagePrint, saved the edited image in Photoshop and then added the image to ImagePrint again.

Right, as it stores the image for additional printing (it's a queue). That said, it would be kind of useful IF IP could detect that you opened and resaved the image and ask you if you wanted to update the queue. Kind of like an 'edit in' Lightroom function. You'd probably have to open from within the queue to Photoshop then have the Save update that queue. Maybe that's possible, I haven't used IP since version 6 or 7.

I wouldn't hold your breath on getting a more modern or intuitive GUI, it isn't on their radar.

[Stefan Ohlsson]

Lol... I just found out that the print for LR "feature" is an add on. All of the template "stuff" comes with it and printing from LR is extra. Really?

If you use this add-on you aren't really using the powerful lay-out functions in IP. For me, even though I have this add-on, I never use it. I save a file from Photoshop or export a file from Lightroom and then drag this file to IP. Not the way that you are used to if you been using a printer driver, but if you are using a RIP it is the standard.

[Stefan Ohlsson]

I wouldn't hold your breath on getting a more modern or intuitive GUI, it isn't on their radar.

Then you have missed their new Dashboard, where you have all the required settings in one window. It isn't pretty, it still looks old-fashioned, but it is so much easier to use than a workflow where you have to make some settings here, some other settings there. For me, as a professional printer, that saves time.

Another reason for using IP is all the little changes that happens in a workflow with Photoshop and a printer driver with each and every update. For me it is important that I can reprint an image one year later and get the same colour and density.

[digitaldog]

It isn't pretty, it still looks old-fashioned, but it is so much easier to use than a workflow where you have to make some settings here, some other settings there.

Exactly my point! Ugly and old fashion. And no, I don't know about it, stopped the use after version 6 or 7.

[Michael Lloyd]

I get that some people need the layout function, I don't... so I have to pay for your functionality

As far as using it every day and not having the problem goes... Ok

I've been arm wrestling with tech support. I swear they (tech support in general not IP) do not read the explanation. They immediately go to page X in the book and read their prescribed answer...

I sent:

I don’t think you are understanding what’s going on. I opened the image in IP and printed it. I noticed that there were limbs encroaching on the edge of the image so I edited the image and REMOVED (cloned out) some limbs. Then I saved the image, with no extra channels or layers and with the locked background layer still intact. I appended a P to the end of the filename so that I would know that I was opening the modified file in IP and I put it in its own folder just to be double sure. The edits, even though they are in the new file, do not appear in IP preview. IP appears to still be using the older version. When I print from IP the unedited version of the file prints.

Here's two screenshots to illustrate the problem. Same file. One in LR5 and one in IP9. Middle right side of the image. Above the intruding limb (with god awful halos that I need to fix). IP shows the original version that I printed even though I opened a different file from a different folder. The Job Name clearly has P appended to the filename. LR shows the edits. Bear in mind. I REINSTALLED IP9 and it still will not read the file as it truly is. I've rebooted numerous times. The file is flat. It retains the original locked background layer. It does not have extra channels...

[Michael Lloyd]

You can't edit an image in photoshop and then just save it. You should have deleted the image in ImagePrint, saved the edited image in Photoshop and then added the image to ImagePrint again. This become second nature after a while when you use ImagePrint, as I still do. The quality of the B&W is still better than Epson ABW, the tinting functions are in another league. And as a test made by Mark at AArdenburg showed, an ImagePrint colour print will not fade as fast as a print made by the Epson driver if you use x900 printers. ImagePrint uses less yellow, which will fade faster that the orange ink that was added to these printers.

In a print made with Epson ABW you will see some yellow ink dots, which you won't find in a B&W print made in Photoshop. That means that a B&W print will probably also last longer if it's made with ImagePrint.

I know... that's what I did. Over and over and over... The double red scissors and I are close friends now. I reinstalled IP. No change. Believe me, I've second guessed myself a gillion times. It's a weird problem. I isolated the edited file by giving it a different name and putting it in it's own folder. I reinstalled IP. Nothing... I don't know enough about the Mac OS to say that it could be a cache issue.

As far as the quality of the RIP goes... I agree with everything you just typed. I did not expect to see an improvement over ABW but I did.

[Michael Lloyd]

Ugh... I hate when I miss a very clear explanation for why I'm having a problem... but I did. Tech Support 10 Customer 0 but happy...

So here's the deal. I had two issues. One was weird. One was really weird.

The really weird is what I elaborated on here and it ended up being a problem with a setting change that I probably made. If I had looked closely at the image in the IP9 preview I would have seen that it was being cropped by IP because I had it set to do that in the Advanced tab. The crop cut off the edited area and left "other limbs" on the edge but in a slightly different location. I saw limbs and went down the wrong path of thinking IP was somehow caching the old file. The edges are clearly different now that Tech Support got through the block of titanium that I have for a skull. I followed their instructions from 2 or 3 emails ago and poof... like magic... no more problem.

The weird problem has to do with banding and a wonky looking image. Like not even discernible as an image wonky. Apparently, if you have layers (I didn't) and/or leave extra Channels in the file, from Luminosity masks in my case, IP9 doesn't like it. If I understand them correctly I have to flatten, remove extra channels, and change the Colorspace since I use ProPhoto to be able to print with IP. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, the RIP is pretty nice. On the other hand... two large TIF files just to print seems like a waste of space. IDK... admittedly, printing with a RIP is new to me. Maybe that's "just how it is". I like the results. I don't like the interface. I don't like the file storage issues. Right now, results will beat the other two for prints that matter.

To be clear, because she deserves no criticism, Tech Support (Iryna) at ImagePrints did a great job. If I had read one of her last replies completely the little light bulb would've come on. She solved two fairly significant problems (for me) in very little time (insignificant time if i had read what she sent me). She definitely knows the software... I have no doubt that she was immensely frustrated with me but she never showed it. Maybe not... but I don't see how...

[Stefan Ohlsson]

Apparently, if you have layers (I didn't) and/or leave extra Channels in the file, from Luminosity masks in my case, IP9 doesn't like it. If I understand them correctly I have to flatten, remove extra channels, and change the Colorspace since I use ProPhoto to be able to print with IP.

You can't have extra channels in the file, but you can use layers of all kinds, regular layers, adjustment layers, but you have to set Photoshop to maximize compability. I print files with Prophoto RGB all day, so no problem with that. As my printers can print some colours outside Adobe RGB gamut, I prefer to print many of my images with Prophoto RGB.

[Michael Lloyd]

You can't have extra channels in the file, but you can use layers of all kinds, regular layers, adjustment layers, but you have to set Photoshop to maximize compatability. I print files with Prophoto RGB all day, so no problem with that. As my printers can print some colours outside Adobe RGB gamut, I prefer to print many of my images with Prophoto RGB.

Interesting. That's good news. I was really struggling with the idea of flattening my files. Deleting channels... not so much of a bother since they add to the files size and I can regenerate them if needed.

BTW-

What printer(s) are you using?

I should add Tech Support didn't tell me that I couldn't use ProPhoto. I want to say that I saw that in the manual or possibly on the website. If I don't have to change the ColorSpace then I can use the files that I've been using and not worry about anything but extra channels.

[Stefan Ohlsson]

What printer(s) are you using?

Epson 4900, 7900, 9900 and 11880, all driven by ImagePrint. And an Epson SC 70600, driven by EFI Fiery XF, as ImagePrint doesn't support that printer.

[Michael Lloyd]

Epson 4900, 7900, 9900 and 11880, all driven by ImagePrint. And an Epson SC 70600, driven by EFI Fiery XF, as ImagePrint doesn't support that printer.

Excellent. I have a 4900. Thanks for the heads up on sticking with ProPhoto