Automating Printing to Multiple Queues

[PatCastaldo]

Anyone have any experience with automating their workflows a little better?

We do a lot of prints using Qimage One on the Mac, but I feel we've out grown it, in terms of volume. We print a lot of the same print over-and-over, and I need something that can handle the load better. Some days we're spending over 2 hours just queuing up prints to 7 different printers.

Each printer has it's own paper size loaded and we're doing a variety of prints to each all day.

We pull up and print from the same 2000+ files day in and day out.

Instead of having to resend the jobs over and over, I would love to be able to send them once, make sure they're right and then save the spooled jobs and just easily reprint them again and again, programatically. Right now to do that, I reopen a saved job in Qimage and then send it again — so it ends up doing the work it's good at (interpolating and processing the color profiles) again and again... I'd like to do it just once and save that.

I tried doing saved jobs in CUPS, but couldn't reliably reprint them easily.

Part of the problem with Q1 is also in the nature of the user interface. It's hands on user-intensive and single-threaded; I can't open and print multiples at once, I have to do them one at a time, which can be very time consuming on large images (just sending to queue).

At this point, I'm ready to switch to Windows or even a server-based platform if it'd save us time... ideally want something that's easily scriptable or can be called via an API or something, but still has the quality I'm use to.

I'm open to any and all suggestions and pointers.

Thanks.

[BrianWJH]

Hi, sounds like you need something like this: https://www.serendipity-software.com.au/products/megarip/

Brian.

[arobinson7547]

Just about any modern day Rip should have Hotfolders and the Queues have the ability to save the Ripped jobs. (Limited by only your Hard Disk/Drive space).

You should be a able to go to the the Rip, look/search for a previously printed job, right click and say PRINT. It 'should' just start Spooling [the already Ripped Job] to the Printer. If you need to change the quantity, that will (should) not cause any re-ripping.

There is also the ability to archive jobs (moving them to a location 'outside' of the Rip, to be reimported whenever needed.. Think jobs that only get printed once a Year)

I would take a look at modern day Rips and request a free demo and compare/look for the Feature Set you most value. Printing and Ripping and the same time is an option, as well as, having multiple Rip engines going at the same time.

[JRSmit]

I use Adobe Lightroom, where i save printjobs, thus simple click to resend.

[Tibor O]

Try Mirage 4 using Droplets.

[tastar]

CADlink Digital Factory RIP

- it's on sale until the end of this year, too.

Tony

[Ernst Dinkla]

Anyone have any experience with automating their workflows a little better?

Did you ask Mike Chaney for a feature like that?  One of the advantages of Q software is a developer that reacts to requests.
In Qimage Ultimate an image can get the pre printing  treatment of QU and saved that way. Print to File feature. If then printed through a straith path you may gain some time.
Printing with QU to HP wide format models gives you a job log file in the HP driver (more or less a RIP) that can be repeated for the next job. Job is stored on the printer HD. I guess Canons have a similar job log, Epsons might.

You still have the Qimage preprint preparations that way.
 
Ernst, op de lei getypt.

[mcbroomf]

Are you printing Just In Time, ie you get an order for one print and then queue it?  If you are could you print to stock using your statistics of how many prints of a given image/size you might need in say a week.  Qimage can print as many copies of the print as you like at any given time, so if you sell 5 images on average in a week, print 5 or so to stock the week before and keep alll your jobs as multiple prints to make them more efficient.  Perhaps you are doing this already and are still running into time/queuing issues.

Aside from the other suggestions which I can't offer alternatives to (as far as Rips etc) could you run each printer from a single local computer, and network the computers to your (presumably) NAS where the files are stored.  That way more than 1 person can be setting queues at each printer at a given time.  Perhaps a bit of a kludge.

Mike

[Binartem]

If you have access to a Windows machine to test it, you could try the Windows version of Qimage One since that is multithreaded.  We have not gotten to the multithread optimization on the Mac version yet as that requires a lot of testing and validation.  It's something we are looking into for inclusion in a future release.

[PatCastaldo]

Hey Everyone — 

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I really appreciate it.

Few notes from what folks have said:

 - QImage on Mac doesn't have search for the job list which would help speed things up, and I have email with developer on that. I'm just not optimistic that it'll ever work as well as I'd like.

 - I don't have a windows machine yet to test things on, and ideally don't want one, but eventually will if I have to.

 - We can't pre-print and keep inventory like Mike suggested; we've got too many things and our workflow and demand curve just doesn't work that way. And multiple people printing at once isn't an option, either.

I'm looking around at different rips, and the Mirage 4 seems promising.

All of the Fiery documentation seems like it might be the best fit, but not disclosing pricing on the website is one of those pet-peeves of mine. And the whole call-and-talk-to-a-rep stuff just sounds exhausting. I wish I had bought a P800 at the time w/ Designer Edition so I could have tried the Fiery that came with that.

If anyone has any hands-on experience w/ that, I'd love to hear it. Thanks.

[Stephen Ray]

If anyone has any hands-on experience w/ that, I'd love to hear it. Thanks.

You're either looking for Onyx or Caldera. Onyx is Windows only but can also queue from Macs. You could use at least two RIP machines for your volume. Re-ripping will be necessary because of layout for optimization of quantities but ripping is so fast it's not a point of pain. It's how it's done.

[Binartem]

I could run a test for you on a Windows machine and let you know the processing time if that would help, so you can compare to what you are currently doing.  I'd need some information to try to duplicate the type of job we are comparing.  Just pick a typical job that you can (re)time: you can use print preview so you don't actually use paper since we are only interested in the processing time.  I'd need to know:

- Type of printer
- Page size you are using (displayed above the live view)
- Resolution setting in Qimage One (600, 720, etc.)
- Typical resolution of the images you are printing (6000x4000 for example)
- Type of images (TIFF, JPEG, PSD, etc.)
- The size and number of prints in the job (four 30x20, six 13x19, and two 8x10 as an example)

If I have that info, I can run it and see how long it takes.  Since the Windows version is multithreaded, I've found that it can print almost as fast as the spooler can accept data.  I've considered the idea of adding a feature that just records the spool file so it can be sent again without the processing time, but I'm not convinced it would be a lot faster and you lose a lot of features such as the ability to change paper type, use a new printer profile, substitute new images, and so on.  It would be an interesting comparison particularly since given the price of many RIPs, it'd be cheaper to buy a high end PC... or wait until we get the multithreading optimization in the Mac version.

[Binartem]

- QImage on Mac doesn't have search for the job list which would help speed things up, and I have email with developer on that. I'm just not optimistic that it'll ever work as well as I'd like.

Just an FYI: we added search to the Mac version in August (I believe in part, due to your request).  In the Load Print Job dialog, you can type text and have the jobs filtered to ones containing that text.

[Stephen Ray]

At this point, I'm ready to switch to Windows or even a server-based platform if it'd save us time... ideally want something that's easily scriptable or can be called via an API or something, but still has the quality I'm use to.

I'm open to any and all suggestions and pointers.

Thanks.

1) I suggest considering more along the line of "adding" Windows.

2) "Easily scriptable" suggests to me that you're ready to invest and significantly grow your business.

3) API's stem from a central business hub. What are you currently using to run your business? QuickBooks?

4) Here is a link to a 2 minute Onyx Hub video at YouTube...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoDPRZ3T-4A

[PatCastaldo]

Mike — thanks, I'll email you some details about our workflow and job types (along with a video I made of the bottlenecks and a bug I think I found in search).

Stephen — Yeah, we wrote everything ourselves for business management (from order submission to shipping, all of it), no off-the-shelf stuff, so what I'm mostly looking for is an interface for either submitting jobs or rerunning jobs already done.

I'll checkout Caldera and Onyx hub. Thanks.

[Stephen Ray]

I'll checkout Caldera and Onyx hub. Thanks.

Apparently Onyx has a dedicated product or service they're calling "Onyx Connect." (A sort of API?) I hope you report back with whatever you learn and decide. Also know I encourage QImage as a possibly solution, still.

Good luck. Sounds interesting.

[PatCastaldo]

Progress Update For Those Following Along: Looked into Caldera, but they don't support the P800 or P900, so they're out.