So I download the Mac demo, can I use my existing custom profiles or I have to rebuild through this demo?
They state:
When you print from most software applications, you are at the mercy of the operating system, the software and the printer driver. Qimage One takes direct control of rendering your photos so that they will look their absolute best when they are printed.
Setting aside the "Color management OFF" bug in Q1, I'm having no issues with color rendering and exact color matching between Q1 and the straight PSCC "photoshop manages color" output. Running on a Mac Pro Tower with latest High Sierra installed. I've made direct comparisons printing with same ICC profile to same printer/ink/media straight from PSCC, then again through Q1. Only image quality differences I see in my tests is with resizing/sharpening setting of Q1 because it's doing additional resampling/sharpening (unless you turn it off and keep scaling to "original" size) that the PSCC print path does not do. I have not gone higher than Q1's "default" value in the print sharpening algorithm yet, but even at that level, the visual image quality differences are not with global tone and color, only the very fine detail sharpening. Q1 definitely adds a little micro-contrast when its sharpening algorithm is used, but only a very close inspection of the print (where us old baby boomers need to put on extra strength reading glasses) show the subtle sharpening and micro contrast differences. I personally dislike any obvious "digitally sharpened" appearance in inkjet prints, so in my tests backing down from the default 5 setting to 3 did the trick for me. Could have matched the fine increase in print sharpness most likely with a little "sharpening for print" move in PSCC, but all and all, very nice output with colors and tones as predicted in the PSCC softproof mode.
Q1 is sending the RGB data through the same printer driver. It just populates the printer driver "default" setting with the values you set in the Q1 menu (which is a commendably nicer approach than all those dumb submenus most drivers use for print quality settings). It is also probably doing the RGB source to destination conversion as "photoshop manages color" does. However, it's not clear to me whether it uses the Adobe CMM or the Apple CMM but those CMM differences are for all practical purposes negligible.
I have no idea what the marketing guys were saying with
"When you print from most software applications, you are at the mercy of the operating system, the software and the printer driver. Qimage One takes direct control of rendering your photos so that they will look their absolute best when they are printed" but I suspect they were a bit giddy about the resampling/sharpening functionality and the general ease with which the enduser can place images on a page and select the various printer driver menu settings. Indeed, it's incredibly obvious that Q1 hands off the data stream to the very same printer driver supplied by the printer manufacturer... No circumventing the standard printer driver is occurring, just the way Q1 is enabling the enduser to easily set up the various printer driver menu options compared to other image editing software interfaces or for that matter the printer driver dialog box itself
Indeed, Q1 lays out the required settings in a way that each and every overly complex print driver menu/submenu mess should have been doing in the first place.
cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com