PrinTao 8

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I have not discussed with LSI where the profiles come from, but yes, using the same profile in alternative applications would contribute to similarity of results. In the case of PrinTao, two other key components also contribute to image quality:both the CMS and the printer drivers are LSI developments bespoke to this application, contributing to the consistent, high quality results it produces.

Hi Mark,

Interesting, but it (my emphasis in bold above) is not mentioned on their website as far as I know / last time I looked. In fact they are a bit vague, leaving it open for interpretation. They mention "PrinTao 8 takes over color management and all printer driver settings, allowing you to concentrate entirely on your images." which to me just means that they have built a step-by-step user interface that deals with filling in the details based on higher level choices (such as e.g. paper choice, which then triggers the correct profile).

The fact that profiles seem to be identical to paper manufacturer's offering re-enforces my doubt about anything more involved than using e.g. LCMS and paper manufacturer's profiles.

Cheers,
Bart

[Mark D Segal]

I am only going by the fact that the more coloured inks we add to the mix, the more likely chance we have of introducing some colour into the final print. (Maybe wrong here but please correct me if I am )

This is one of those situations where you need to measure actual results (the prints, preferably targets with known file values) to understand for sure what the application does with the profiles you are using.

[Mark D Segal]

Hi Mark,

Interesting, but it (my emphasis in bold above) is not mentioned on their website as far as I know / last time I looked. In fact they are a bit vague, leaving it open for interpretation. They mention "PrinTao 8 takes over color management and all printer driver settings, allowing you to concentrate entirely on your images." which to me just means that they have built a step-by-step user interface that deals with filling in the details based on higher level choices (such as e.g. paper choice, which then triggers the correct profile).

The fact that profiles seem to be identical to paper manufacturer's offering re-enforces my doubt about anything more involved than using e.g. LCMS and paper manufacturer's profiles.

Cheers,
Bart

Bart,

I happen to know that LSI put a very considerable developmental effort into the design, testing and manufacture of this software. Regardless of how they may have used existing materials as part of their "assemblage" under the hood is really quite irrelevant to me. What matters is the final package and whether it performs to produce high quality results in a user-friendly manner. I don't know whether you've tested it or not, but I have, and that is what underlies the conclusions I came to as stated in my review, and reconfirmed by the independent testing that Kevin Raber did before we agreed to publish.

[IanBarber]

There is no doubt at all that the program does perform very well and does produce great quality prints. The interface is clean, very easy to use and does make it extremely easy to use.


My initial thought when reading the review was that the paper profiles supplied for the installed printer were actually profiled for their own print engine, maybe they are. What led me to think they are just the standard profiles suppled when you install the manufacturers driver is that when comparing the manufacturers profiles to the ones in /Users/YouruserNamehere/Library/Application Support/PrinTao/PrintMedia/Epson Standard Media 3880.mediapkg they look identical.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Bart,

I happen to know that LSI put a very considerable developmental effort into the design, testing and manufacture of this software. Regardless of how they may have used existing materials as part of their "assemblage" under the hood is really quite irrelevant to me.

But Mark, that is something different than writing one's own CMS and creating one's own drivers and profiles. That may also be relevant to others, who e.g. would like to compare to alternatives. If the same components are used, then no tests need to be done. If one tests one implementation, then other implementations will usually give the same results. 

What matters is the final package and whether it performs to produce high quality results in a user-friendly manner. I don't know whether you've tested it or not, but I have, and that is what underlies the conclusions I came to as stated in my review, and reconfirmed by the independent testing that Kevin Raber did before we agreed to publish.

No I haven't tested it myself, because I do not use a computer with the Mac OS. So that's why I use Qimage Ultimate, which clearly states that it uses the tried and tested LCMS II and any ICC Printer profile (also self made ones) that one chooses to use, so that part is transparent and the same between applications.

Cheers,
Bart

[Mark D Segal]

But Mark, that is something different than writing one's own CMS and creating one's own drivers and profiles. That may also be relevant to others, who e.g. would like to compare to alternatives. If the same components are used, then no tests need to be done. If one tests one implementation, then other implementations will usually give the same results. 

No I haven't tested it myself, because I do not use a computer with the Mac OS. So that's why I use Qimage Ultimate, which clearly states that it uses the tried and tested LCMS II and any ICC Printer profile (also self made ones) that one chooses to use, so that part is transparent and the same between applications.

Cheers,
Bart

Yes, one can always go at it indirectly by inferences and deductive logic, but as far as I'm concerned, the most direct and reliable way of knowing what an application does is to use it and test it with reliable methods and materials.

[Manoli]

...  but as far as I'm concerned, the most direct and reliable way of knowing what an application does is to use it and test it with reliable methods and materials.

As indeed you did.
And your testing (as compared to Lr) concluded that

" ... I fail to see any meaningful or systematic difference between the two sets of results. Even the differences I mention here would be “lost in translation” were I to scan the prints and reproduce the scanned files in this review. "

[Manoli]

Regarding their supposed CMS:

PrinTao 8‘s ICC color management is based on one of the best color engines in the world with special focus on accuracy and performance. It uses the International Color Consortium standard (ICC), which is the modern standard for color management and was approved by ISO as an international standard in 2005, ISO 15076-1.

Our intelligent color management with “embedded profile detection” automatically matches the embedded source profile in any imported image to the correct output profile, representing the media, ink and print quality of the output.

http://www.printao8.com/overview/features/color-management/
continuing,

... clicking on “Install Printer” PrinTao 8 will download all required driver data from the web and install it. Also printer-specific color profiles for papers from the printer manufacturer will be downloaded and installed.

http://www.printao8.com/overview/features/printer-assistant/

Nowhere is there a claim to their own unique CMS unlike, say, ImagePrint.

[Alan Goldhammer]

We can argue around the question of whether they are just repackaging the Epson driver or in fact have created a new driver and CMS but unless someone is willing to do individual patch testing of both we won't really know.  This was the point I tried to make early on regarding PrinTao, why would one expect an ICC profile to behave "identically" if the driver were changed in a manner that the ink lay down is somewhat different for the relevant paper versus the Epson driver.

The key issue from Mark's excellent review is that PrinTao produces excellent prints that differ little at all relative to the Epson driver and LR.  While some of us would like some transparency about this we don't have it now.  As with Bart, I'm on Windows and cannot use this software.

[Mark D Segal]

Regarding their supposed CMS:

http://www.printao8.com/overview/features/color-management/
continuing,

http://www.printao8.com/overview/features/printer-assistant/

Nowhere is there a claim to their own unique CMS unlike, say, ImagePrint.

So what? Where is all this leading? Have you tried the application? Do you like it? Or do you have issues with it in terms of what it does or doesn't do?

[Manoli]

So what?

So plenty.

And, yes, I did try (the original) PrintTao and came to the same conclusion you did '.. failed to see any meaningful or systematic difference ' or benefit of PrintTao over Lr.

[vjbelle]

Although there seems to be some discussion regarding their CMS I have found that image layout has severe limitations and problems.  Unlike LR or PS trying to vary a 'CELL'/Page size vs./independent of 'IMAGE' size is impossible or very cumbersome.  To me this is completely unacceptable for printing software.  I have had emails back and forth regarding this issue with nothing resolved other than they will make it a 'feature' for a future release.  Feature for a future release?  It already exists with every other printing software I know of.  That's a deal killer for me. 

Victor

[Mark D Segal]

If it's a bug they should just fix it. But could you describe in more detail how you get this problem. What are the conditions in which you would want to adjust these independently of each other and what unwanted results are you getting when you do so?

[vjbelle]

Mark....  I use roll paper so I have never tried anything for sheet.  I also scale my images ahead of time to the size I want them to be.  I do all of the upsizing outside of PrintTao.  When an image is brought into the program the 'Cell size' and 'Image size' are linked.  This is default for them.  I want to increase the cell size but since both image size and cell size are linked I can't increase the cell size without also increasing the image size..... believe me I have tried many ways including dragging with the crop tool and using the sizing numerical inputs.  What is even more frustrating is increasing the cell size to the desired size and then numerically trying to reduce the image size.  The image and cell then instantly revert back to the default size.  The attitude of the parent company as per their tech support is that this is how it should be..... well, not for me. 

Victor

[Mark D Segal]

Mark....  I use roll paper so I have never tried anything for sheet.  I also scale my images ahead of time to the size I want them to be.  I do all of the upsizing outside of PrintTao.  When an image is brought into the program the 'Cell size' and 'Image size' are linked.  This is default for them.  I want to increase the cell size but since both image size and cell size are linked I can't increase the cell size without also increasing the image size..... believe me I have tried many ways including dragging with the crop tool and using the sizing numerical inputs.  What is even more frustrating is increasing the cell size to the desired size and then numerically trying to reduce the image size.  The image and cell then instantly revert back to the default size.  The attitude of the parent company as per their tech support is that this is how it should be..... well, not for me. 

Victor

Hi Victor,

OK, based on this, a few observations, but not yet a solution - we'll need to talk a bit more; however this is useful. Firstly, in principle I don't *think* the issue is affected by whether one uses sheet or roll paper. So let us set that variable aside for now. Dimensioning and resampling your photos before taking them into PrinTao is correct procedure because PrinTao cannot resample. It can only change linear dimensions and if in so doing the image size exceeds the paper size, the photo will be cropped. So your workflow for this avoids that problem. The one missing piece in this, and what would determine whether the application's behaviour is a bug (your view) or lack of a feature (LSI's view) is why you would want to change the cell size independently of the image size. Or, let me put it this way: As we just discussed above, we already have the photo dimensioned (linear and PPI) the way we want it before it comes into PrinTao. Before we bring it into PrinTao we select a paper size (whether roll or sheet) that will at least accommodate the linear dimensions of the photo. We bring it into PrinTao, at which point the application reads the photo's dimensions and selects the corresponding image and cell size to match. Could you explain what more is needed? For example (1), if I wanted to shrink the image size a bit to change the size of the margin or framing around the photo, I can do that in the Image Size Palette in PrinTao, which will at the same time inversely adjust the PPI (zone slider at the bottom of the image window) because the application does not resample the photo. For this kind of operation, one wants the cell size and the photo size to be the same otherwise the photo centering will not work correctly - pressing the "center" command will center the cell but not the photo if their dimensions differ - at least in my copy of the application. For example (2), let us say I want to put more than one photo on the sheet within a given set of paper dimensions. I can do that in the Templates Palette either by using one of their provided layouts that does the job, or by creating a custom template. The image and cell sizes should respect the parameters of the template. So I come back to the basic missing piece in your puzzle: why do you want the cell size to behave independently of the image size?

[vjbelle]

Hi Victor,

(1), if I wanted to shrink the image size a bit to change the size of the margin or framing around the photo, I can do that in the Image Size Palette in PrinTao, which will at the same time inversely adjust the PPI (zone slider at the bottom of the image window) because the application does not resample the photo. For this kind of operation, one wants the cell size and the photo size to be the same otherwise the photo centering will not work correctly - pressing the "center" command will center the cell but not the photo if their dimensions differ - at least in my copy of the application.

But..... you cannot 'See' what is going on.  How do you know how much margin you have created by adjusting the image size?  I print museum wraps.  The size of my image has to be very exact as each of my frames is slightly different in size (product of stretcher bars).  I need 5 inches of leading and lagging space.  I can easily do that with any other printing program and easily visualize my 'Cell/paper size').  With PrintTao I have found it to be impossible. 

Victor

[Mark D Segal]

But..... you cannot 'See' what is going on.  How do you know how much margin you have created by adjusting the image size?  I print museum wraps.  The size of my image has to be very exact as each of my frames is slightly different in size (product of stretcher bars).  I need 5 inches of leading and lagging space.  I can easily do that with any other printing program and easily visualize my 'Cell/paper size').  With PrintTao I have found it to be impossible. 

Victor

I have just tried this again, and actually you can see what is going on. Firstly, you should have the Ruler active (shows linear dimensions width and height on the left and top of the print preview window respectively). Secondly, you can create a custom page size for each of your photo frames. Thirdly, you know how to add the lead and lag requirements to the linear dimensions of the photo itself. Your custom page size would be the photo size plus the 5 inches lag and lead at each end. PrinTao can then position the photo in the middle of the page so your lead and lag margins are correct. Am I missing something?

[vjbelle]

I shouldn't have to add the leading and lagging space to my image..... doing so increases the file size unnecessarily.  It seems to me that you want to back into this through different functions.  I should be able to simply increase the size of the cell without also increasing the size of the image.  Conversely I should be able to reduce the size of my image without also reducing the size of the cell.  That's how its supposed to work...... that's what you are missing. 

I finally heard from tech support again and they have finally admitted that this is a bug and has been forwarded to the developers. 

Victor

[Mark D Segal]

Hi Victor,

Yes, what you are saying makes sense in respect to the file size consideration, so your desired way of doing it is indeed better than the workaround I suggested above. I am pleased they have acknowledged this behaviour should be improved/fixed.

[prairiewing]

Does that mean that "nesting" as available in ImagePrint doesn't work in Printao 8?