Qimage for MAC?

[Panagiotis]

Thanks for the answer,

This option 1 I located, but I find it still very complicated.
But its last information, I can not find where it has this command:

Set Auto Cropping ON
Choose "InteliSpace Placement" to center the image on the paper.

And one more detail, there is no 'undo' option .. I think this is a bug that needs to be fixed.

Att...

You can turn On and OFF auto cropping from the scissors button right down.
Image placement on the paper is controlled from the buttons under image area.

[Panagiotis]

I am not on a mac so I installed the Win demo version of Q1 to test it. Many printing related things are missing relative to Qimage Ultimate. I am not able to find (at least at their usual location in QU) the following:

-Setting the inner and outer borders.
-Printing crop marks (and other image information)
-The ability to save a complete job (This is very important because saving a complete job is very useful and much safer than LR print collections which cannot be locked and can be changed accidentally).

But this is an initial release and probably all these can be added later.

[Abdo]

Yes, you understand perfectly.

It is the first version and we are here putting the main needs we need at the moment.

Surely it is of great help to those who are developing.

I bought it, because I believe in their work and I'm sure this stuff will be right.

[Denis de Gannes]

I am not on a mac so I installed the Win demo version of Q1 to test it. Many printing related things are missing relative to Qimage Ultimate. I am not able to find (at least at their usual location in QU) the following:

-Setting the inner and outer borders.
-Printing crop marks (and other image information)
-The ability to save a complete job (This is very important because saving a complete job is very useful and much safer than LR print collections which cannot be locked and can be changed accidentally).

But this is an initial release and probably all these can be added later.

See the response from Mike Chaney, the developer of Qimage. If you are on Windows and already have Qimage Ultimate then there is little benefit in also installing Qimage One.

Quote from: DdeGannes on January 12, 2018, 05:51:09 PM
I am on vacation with my iPad and will not be able to try until I return home on the 15th Jan.
Will this application be a substitute for Qimage Ultimate?

Depends on your perspective (how you use Ultimate).  Qimage One is designed to do one thing: print optimal quality photos easily.  So it doesn't try to be all things at once like Ultimate and as a result, Qimage One will not have capabilities like editing, email sending, file conversion, slide shows, database/search, and other functions that are not directly related to the photo printing process.

Ultimate will (for now) remain PC only and continues forward being the "Swiss Army Knife" of photo printing tools.  Qimage Ultimate 2018.113 is due out next week.

Regards,
Mike

[Panagiotis]

See the response from Mike Chaney, the developer of Qimage. If you are on Windows and already have Qimage Ultimate then there is little benefit in also installing Qimage One.

Quote from: DdeGannes on January 12, 2018, 05:51:09 PM
I am on vacation with my iPad and will not be able to try until I return home on the 15th Jan.
Will this application be a substitute for Qimage Ultimate?

Depends on your perspective (how you use Ultimate).  Qimage One is designed to do one thing: print optimal quality photos easily.  So it doesn't try to be all things at once like Ultimate and as a result, Qimage One will not have capabilities like editing, email sending, file conversion, slide shows, database/search, and other functions that are not directly related to the photo printing process.

Ultimate will (for now) remain PC only and continues forward being the "Swiss Army Knife" of photo printing tools.  Qimage Ultimate 2018.113 is due out next week.

Regards,
Mike

The omissions I noted are "directly related to the photo printing process".

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

The omissions I noted are "directly related to the photo printing process".

Hi,

While I agree that the initial version of Qimage One can use some more functionality (and the author did say that it will be somewhat limited to speed up the initial release), there are very many things "directly related to the photo printing process". But they are not necessarily 'showstoppers' for most users.

If they are, wait till they're added, or in the meantime use the Qimage Ultimate product that has more features than almost any of its current users need (and there are still things missing, for some). The Windows version reportedly runs fine under Parallels on the Mac OS.

The pricing of Qimage is such that it's almost a no-brainer, given the productivity and output quality improvements it offers or will offer after the first updates. Even the upgrades after a year are dirt cheap as well, as a refreshingly different approach. And the author of Qimage is very knowledgeable and approachable (but may be hard to convince for feature changes unless very good arguments are used), and he introduced several innovations over the last 20 years that left the competition (if any) in the dust.

Cheers,
Bart

[Abdo]

Bart,

I understand your point.

But it's important to think, to many, not a few MAC users who have not and never used a Windows version, no matter how many people say it.

So when it solves to put a MAC version in the market, at least that is expected that this version is next to that we have for MAC.

Then my comparison would be the LR, he would have to at least offer something equivalent.

It is not because it worked for Windows that MAC users now have to accept what is placed.

If it made a version for MAC it is because it has commercial interest if it has commercial interest that makes it right.

Cheers,

Abdo

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Bart,

I understand your point.

But it's important to think, to many, not a few MAC users who have not and never used a Windows version, no matter how many people say it.

So when it solves to put a MAC version in the market, at least that is expected that this version is next to that we have for MAC.

Then my comparison would be the LR, he would have to at least offer something equivalent.

It is not because it worked for Windows that MAC users now have to accept what is placed.

If it made a version for MAC it is because it has commercial interest if it has commercial interest that makes it right.

Hi Abdo,

I understand and agree, but Mike Chaney (the author) is kind of special (and has been at least for the 20(!) years that Qimage has been around) and he will deliver on his promises to expand the capabilities of the initial release version. The best proof of that is that there is a number of features missing in the release version that have already been implemented successfully in the Windows (Ultimate) version. So it's not that they have yet to be invented, it's just a matter of time to implement. You guys on the Mac OS are lucky to benefit from us guinea pigs on Windows who helped build the foundation (and loved every step of the way) to what it has become ...

Cheers,
Bart

[digitaldog]

You guys on the Mac OS are lucky to benefit from us guinea pigs on Windows who helped build the foundation (and loved every step of the way) to what it has become ...

And you guys on Windows are lucky to  benefit from us guinea pigs on Mac who helped build the foundation for Photoshop 
The big question of course is, for those of us with say Lightroom, what's worthwhile. Still working on that.

[Abdo]

Hi Abdo,

I understand and agree, but Mike Chaney (the author) is kind of special (and has been at least for the 20(!) years that Qimage has been around) and he will deliver on his promises to expand the capabilities of the initial release version. The best proof of that is that there is a number of features missing in the release version that have already been implemented successfully in the Windows (Ultimate) version. So it's not that they have yet to be invented, it's just a matter of time to implement. You guys on the Mac OS are lucky to benefit from us guinea pigs on Windows who helped build the foundation (and loved every step of the way) to what it has become ...

Cheers,
Bart

I do not complain.
So much that I bought the version, without even testing.
Because I believe it will evolve.

Cheers,

Abdo

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

And you guys on Windows are lucky to benefit from us guinea pigs on Mac who helped build the foundation for Photoshop 
The big question of course is, for those of us with say Lightroom, what's worthwhile. Still working on that.

Hi Andrew,

If only looking at the financial side of things, it's obvious that Qimage has used a more beneficial pricing model for its customers. In fact, I think I purchased the free upgrades for life version of Qimage around the turn of the century and was happy enough to buy the modest upgrade price version when it became available. I even skipped upgrading for a while, and could just get the latest update for an upgrade price(!) after I started paying again (no penalties for temporarily interrupting the upgrade fees).

Looking at the technical benefits, Qimage has been offering cutting-edge (proprietary) solutions(!) to printing issues that people can have for decades, and has been leading in output quality (except, maybe, some very good/expensive dedicated single printer model RIPs). Qimage covers any printer that has a driver for the given Operating System (making changes of printer-hardware very easy). It also does not require to pay for using different printers or print-widths, a single license does it all.

Cheers,
Bart

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I do not complain.
So much that I bought the version, without even testing.
Because I believe it will evolve.

Hi Abdo,

I'm confident (after almost 20 years of personal experience with the product and its author) that you will not be disappointed but, in fact, will be pleasantly amazed (and there are few people/products that I can endorse with such confidence).

Cheers,
Bart

[digitaldog]

Hi Andrew,
If only looking at the financial side of things, it's obvious that Qimage has used a more beneficial pricing model for its customers.

It's not obvious until you define what product with the same basic features you're comparing, so what product is that? Not Lightroom.

Qimage has been offering cutting-edge (proprietary) solutions(!) to printing issues that people can have for decades, and has been leading in output quality

Sounds like the kind of marketing speak we hear from: fill in the blank.
May be so, it's up to each of us to test this and see if it's true. For example, you've stated it has superior resampling. And that may very well be true for those who have to resample up their images. I don't.

Qimage covers any printer that has a driver for the given Operating System (making changes of printer-hardware very easy).

You feel that's unique?

It also does not require to pay for using different printers or print-widths, a single license does it all.

That too isn't unique as far as I see. It's no different from Lightroom no?

[MHMG]

... For example, you've stated it has superior resampling. And that may very well be true for those who have to resample up their images. I don't. You feel that's unique? That too isn't unique as far as I see. It's no different from Lightroom no?

Andrew, you hit on the crux of my interest in Qimage, the upsampling and sharpening algorithms applied by Qimage. I make large prints, but I'm not a guy who can go out and purchase a Phase One 100 Mp camera. So, I routinely have to pay a lot of attention to my upsampling and sharpening techniques to pull the very best enlarged prints out of my more humble camera original files.  Many folks swear by a superior interpolation/sharpening result from Qimage, but it's actually a challenging topic.

For one thing, I've got lots of hard fought, hard won experience "preflighting" print quality output in Photoshop, i.e. bringing already upsampled/sharpened output from RAW developers into Photoshop, then applying additional resampling and sharpening functions in PS to squeeze every drop of sharpness I can get without introducing degrading image artifacts or "over baking' the  final file for print before I actually hit the print button. Qimage adds another layer of complexity ( I did buy a licensed copy of Q1) into my  workflow because it offers no way to "export to tiff" the Q1 converted-to-print data, so there's no obvious way to preview the end result. You have to carry all the upsizing/sharpening experimentation through to print, thus burning up a lot of paper and ink. I'm working on a work around, trying to install a "virtual tiff file printer driver' on my Mac, but I'm not quite there yet. Without such a " preflight proofing" image workflow, everything has to go to print. Costs add up quickly.

Why not just trust Q1 to do its thing with resampling/sharpening? Well, that begs the question: "what level of source file sharpening and size interpolation is the best starting point for Q1's additional resampling/sharpening goodness?". One could say, "well start with the "native" file size, but coming from ACR or any other RAW developer, that native file will already have baked in sharpening (or not). So it's a rather complex set of experiments to compare Q! print output to PS or LR output, and it clearly depends on what level of sharpness and digital artifacts exist in the source file. That quality is baked in with OOC jpeg image files, but wide open for lots of interpretation when working with RAW files.

kind regards,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

May be so, it's up to each of us to test this and see if it's true. For example, you've stated it has superior resampling. And that may very well be true for those who have to resample up their images. I don't

Hi Andrew,

Think again. ANY size of output that is not a 100% pixel-for-pixel reproduction of the source image, will need to be resampled. Any enlarged output will benefit even more (e.g. check smoother arcs and near diagonal features). Also, downsampled images will need to be resampled (without introducing aliasing artifacts).

Especially when resampling to the printer driver's requested PPI resolution (which will allow output sharpening without subsequent resampling/blurring), this will require lots of care at the pixel level (including e.g. dithering of smooth gradients with 8-bit/channel printer drivers, and the handling of either 16/15-bit, or 8-bit/channel, source images, and/or anti-aliasing for down-sampled images. Not sure if all that is already implemented in Q1, but it is in the Ultimate version, and has been for a long time. So it's merely a matter of implementation time if it's not already there.

And that is not marketing speech, it's the voicing of 20 years of benefitting from solutions that really make a difference.

In fact, but I do not know if it's already implemented in the initial version of Qimage One, I can print with 'Overdrive' resolution with Qimage Ultimate, which means that a native 720-PPI printer will be fed by a 1440 PPI level of detail (and a 600 PPI driver with 1200 PPI), and it is visible (it may be subtle from a distance, but more angels are in fact dancing on the pin's head, when viewed at close scrutiny).

Cheers,
Bart

[Panagiotis]

Hi,

While I agree that the initial version of Qimage One can use some more functionality (and the author did say that it will be somewhat limited to speed up the initial release), there are very many things "directly related to the photo printing process". But they are not necessarily 'showstoppers' for most users.

If they are, wait till they're added, or in the meantime use the Qimage Ultimate product that has more features than almost any of its current users need (and there are still things missing, for some). The Windows version reportedly runs fine under Parallels on the Mac OS.

The pricing of Qimage is such that it's almost a no-brainer, given the productivity and output quality improvements it offers or will offer after the first updates. Even the upgrades after a year are dirt cheap as well, as a refreshingly different approach. And the author of Qimage is very knowledgeable and approachable (but may be hard to convince for feature changes unless very good arguments are used), and he introduced several innovations over the last 20 years that left the competition (if any) in the dust.

Cheers,
Bart

I like QU very much. I use it more and more. I am sure that Q1 will become a very useful app for macOS users too.

[TommyWeir]

I had a look, printed off a few.  I think I'll hold off.  It doesn't offer enough control on positioning for me and the Mac implementation is a bit rough to be honest.   There is certainly a market for a great photo printing app, perhaps the PC Ultimate version meets that but not this.

Stuck with Capture One's clumsy approach or the Epson Print Layout app, which isn't much better. 

[Ernst Dinkla]

Andrew, you hit on the crux of my interest in Qimage, the upsampling and sharpening algorithms applied by Qimage. I make large prints, but I'm not a guy who can go out and purchase a Phase One 100 Mp camera. So, I routinely have to pay a lot of attention to my upsampling and sharpening techniques to pull the very best enlarged prints out of my more humble camera original files.  Many folks swear by a superior interpolation/sharpening result from Qimage, but it's actually a challenging topic.

For one thing, I've got lots of hard fought, hard won experience "preflighting" print quality output in Photoshop, i.e. bringing already upsampled/sharpened output from RAW developers into Photoshop, then applying additional resampling and sharpening functions in PS to squeeze every drop of sharpness I can get without introducing degrading image artifacts or "over baking' the  final file for print before I actually hit the print button. Qimage adds another layer of complexity ( I did buy a licensed copy of Q1) into my  workflow because it offers no way to "export to tiff" the Q1 converted-to-print data, so there's no obvious way to preview the end result. You have to carry all the upsizing/sharpening experimentation through to print, thus burning up a lot of paper and ink. I'm working on a work around, trying to install a "virtual tiff file printer driver' on my Mac, but I'm not quite there yet. Without such a " preflight proofing" image workflow, everything has to go to print. Costs add up quickly.

Why not just trust Q1 to do its thing with resampling/sharpening? Well, that begs the question: "what level of source file sharpening and size interpolation is the best starting point for Q1's additional resampling/sharpening goodness?". One could say, "well start with the "native" file size, but coming from ACR or any other RAW developer, that native file will already have baked in sharpening (or not). So it's a rather complex set of experiments to compare Q! print output to PS or LR output, and it clearly depends on what level of sharpness and digital artifacts exist in the source file. That quality is baked in with OOC jpeg image files, but wide open for lots of interpretation when working with RAW files.

kind regards,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

Qimage Ultimate has the Print to File choice for that and it must be quite easy to implant that in Q1 too. There is a demo version of QU too and in the interpolation + smart sharpening routines both will act the same when starting from the defaults (interpolation algorithm choice etc) in QU.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[digitaldog]

Think again. ANY size of output that is not a 100% pixel-for-pixel reproduction of the source image, will need to be resampled.

Indeed it does but I've yet to see the issue sampling down for output using any number of processes.

In fact, but I do not know....

You sure you want to continue with that as the start of a sentence? 

[digitaldog]

Many folks swear by a superior interpolation/sharpening result from Qimage, but it's actually a challenging topic.

Many swear by Perfect BlowUp or Prefect Resize and so on. When I ran my own tests as I think they should be run, I didn't find superior sampling making it's way to the actual print and did find capture and output sharpening provided a much larger difference in the results then the products themselves without this important set of edits.

It offers no way to "export to tiff" the Q1 converted-to-print data...

That's a pretty significant limitation in my book too, certainly for anyone hoping to send the files out for print.
What about Print to PDF on the Mac, RIP in Photoshop? Inelegant, slow, potentially damaging?