"When I began to make prints, I frankly did not know what to expect. State of the art inkjet printers have gotten so good, that I very much doubted anyone could exceed the quality of something like the Epson 9900 with my custom settings and my custom profiles. I was wrong. The prints made using Imageprint 8 are better.
As to how much better they are, really depends on the particular image. In some images, the difference is quite subtle and it may take a couple of minutes of observing the prints side by side to really see it. Interestingly, once you see it, it somehow gets imbedded in your brain. If you re-shuffle the prints and look at them again, you can now pick the better prints instantly."
I did read that article.
1/ He picked a profile from the paper manufacturer's website for the Epson driver solution.
2/ In the reviewer's opinion IP's dithering weaving while more coarse is considered better as it translates detail better but there's no reference to what the image resolution has been. For that matter it could well be the resampling (up/down?) of IP that shows its better quality than the application (which one?) or driver delivered in both examples: the detail in the dark blue shadows and the wimpers detail contrast/sharpness.
3/ It still isn't an IP print versus Qimage print test, which could say something about the resampling quality.
4/ I think good profiling is a key aspect. IP does that well but it isn't the only solution that does that well. There are several good programs that deliver excellent RGB-device ICC profiles. If no exotic materials are used the (Epson) media presets will provide enough choices to build custom ICC profiles on that cover photographer's needs.
5/ Several IP features mentioned in the review are also available in Qimage. Photoshop and even Lightroom are not really the standard to compare application printing features with. Qimage has a similar Canvas Wrap feature, cheap PS plug-ins exist with even more wrap choices. Nesting, smart sharpening, print filters on the fly, proof print crops, etc etc it is a long list of features that Qimage has.
100/ As I recommended let Narikin test the two (or more) applications and let him decide what is the best or what suits him the best. Someone else suggested that right away after the request and he was right, nobody can replace your eyes, brain, expectations in cases like this one.
In my opinion the LL reviews in the past on profiling, printing, scanners were of a better quality than what I have seen here recently. For example Gerard Kingma's articles on Gamutvision and several profile creation programs were far more interesting. The discussion on the articles too.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla
Try:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/