QImage versus Lightroom for Printing

[Mark D Segal]

Mark,

If I read your messages again in this thread I can only comment that the signal to noise ratio is not high in them. We both have no experience with both applications which isn't a good start for comments here. I do not have much to add in this thread. My messages mainly corrected false information about Qimage or added details on Qimage when asked but I did not try to describe any pro or con aspect of Lightroom, I simply couldn't as I have only used some LR demos in the past.  If other people with experience of both programs do describe pros and cons of both programs I do not object, the thread aims at that content. The thread may get more heated when the writers are more bound to the programs' development teams, I can understand that. As far as I can observe it has more to do with their pride in the software development done than in the potential sales as a result of this thread.

I have no high regard on the ethics in commercial activities. I prefer to see mud throwing en plain public than to hear rumors spread in private talks. It is easier to interpret the first than the last.

--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
April 2014, 600+ inkjet media white spectral plots.

Hi Ernst,

Well, either I haven't done a very good job of making my perspectives clear enough in this thread or you don't quite understand where I am coming from for whatever reason. So be it and let us leave it at that - no harm intended :-).

You are of course correct about our lack of experience using both applications, and that is why I have been careful to avoid discussing Q-Image; I like to know what I am talking about. Frankly, in this kind of discussion I don't see the need for throwing mud, period. Back to the main course.

Best regards,

Mark

[Mark D Segal]

Mark.  I think (maybe surprisingly to you) that your view is just as valid as mine.  But I also don't think I should be stifled because I'm a developer.  In response to another poster saying they don't like the QU interface, I don't like the LR interface.  It seems to me they designed it to take literally the most complex route possible to perform a task.  But that's OK.  To some, the LR UI might seem more "logical" even though it takes more steps to accomplish the same thing.  That's fine.  My point in my post is that a tool is what you make of it.  And if people can learn to use a tool that takes many more steps to do the same thing, and that tool has some obvious deviations from many established standards, they can probably learn to effectively use either tool!  What I find is that people will spend countless hours learning how to navigate and use LR, attend (paid) classes, and then claim it to be the best tool.  Then when some other tool does something differently, they declare it "wrong".  Some of that is the "more expensive is better" syndrome.  People will put the time into using LR because, well, it's Adobe.

Yes, I admit there is some "bad blood" between myself and Adobe.  Chris Cox of Adobe has never had any hesitation in belittling my product on forums, so I feel no obligation whatsoever to hold back in pointing out weaknesses in an Adobe product.  What you do with that "information" is up to you.  But I stand by my right to voice my opinion and I will not be stifled on this, or any other forum.  A couple years ago, a bug in CS5 was exposed where Adobe was writing JPEG files that clearly deviated from the JPEG standard.  Instead of fixing the bug, Chris Cox of Adobe just belittled the half dozen or so programs that had a problem reading those non-standard JPEG's, leaving the bug in place and never fixing it all the way to the end of the CS5 production line.  He called out myself, BreezeBrowser, and several other tools for not "reading" the JPEG files properly when, in fact, the JPEG's were malformed from the get-go.  I finally got him to admit (on his own forum) that yes, the JPEG headers did not follow the standard, but he acted as the "Adobe Mafia" and tried to tow the line that whatever Adobe creates is the defacto new "standard" and other products should mold themselves around it.

But this isn't about "two wrongs make a right".  It's about me pointing out how I feel that nearly everything done in LR can be done much easier in QU.  And there are many things that QU can do that LR cannot.  And only a very few things (mostly non printing related) that LR can do that QU cannot.  Your late father sounds a lot like my late father: smart engineer and good man.  But, having competitors, I'm sure they both realized that pointing out their strengths and competitors weaknesses is a part of business.  If people don't know what to look for, they may not be able to make an informed decision.  That's why you see commercials where companies compare themselves to competitors.  Sometimes the competitor isn't named directly, sometimes they are.  I think the Samsung commercial showing the iPhone users at the airport tethered to wall outlets is a riot.  Maybe you don't like that commercial, or maybe you think it's OK only because it is done in a comedic way, but it's all a part of competition.  I don't have Adobe's payroll or the ability to do things like multi-million dollar campaigns to convince customers that renting software to them is a good idea.  So my statement about QU being much more efficient to use for printing and my belief that LR makes things far more difficult than they need to be, might prompt a few people to actually check it out rather than just assume that LR is better because: either that's what they learned, or lots of people are using it.

So no, I don't apologize for pointing out a competitor's weaknesses.  Those weaknesses are primarily why QU exists because many people realize there is a better way, and pointing out strengths and weaknesses may prompt people to actually look at what they are doing and try the steps in both programs.  It is only then that they may discover, "Wow, he was right.  I've been doing it the hard way".  I've seen enough people struggle with LR that I thought that pointing out that it takes the long way around most tasks was important.  I know I'm not the only one.  Ron Martinsen did a video comparison and while it's not perfect (he missed one obvious step), it does point out how it's not always best to have the most complex UI, even if it is "pretty".  Check out his video where he tries to simply get three 4x6 prints on a page in LR.  I would have preferred that he pick different size prints on the same page which is even more difficult in LR, but it does illustrate my point.  The video is about halfway down the page.

Regards,
Mike

Mike, I think we just have a different concept of what constitutes fair comment (regardless of the business practices of others in the community) so let's leave it at that. I do wish you would develop a Mac version so I could test your application without having to install Windows on my computer. I have heard many good things about Q-Image from a long time back and were it not for that limitation I would very much like to have tried it out.

Regards,

Mark

[jrsforums]

David....Page Margins

Is this what you are looking for?  QU, Edit>Preferences

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

David....Page Margins

Is this what you are looking for?  QU, Edit>Preferences

If that is indeed what Dave was looking for, it's fully explained in this video tutorial.

Cheers,
Bart

[mchaney]

Seems like a lot of good people contributing here who can get opinions (and maybe a few biases and passions) across without it turning downhill.  I certainly appreciate that.  There are positives and negatives with any software and some negatives may drive you away from one solution while the positives of another pull you in.  Good to be able to share both because people have such varying needs and expectations for what they use.

Mike

[Schewe]

Yes, I admit there is some "bad blood" between myself and Adobe.  Chris Cox of Adobe has never had any hesitation in belittling my product on forums, so I feel no obligation whatsoever to hold back in pointing out weaknesses in an Adobe product.

You realize that Chris has nothing to do with Lightroom, right? So, are you saying since you and Chris don't get along, you feel free to complain about an entirely different product because it's still produced by Adobe? You realize how that sounds, right?

[jrsforums]

You realize that Chris has nothing to do with Lightroom, right? So, are you saying since you and Chris don't get along, you feel free to complain about an entirely different product because it's still produced by Adobe? You realize how that sounds, right?

As you should be aware, the Adobe proponents have been known to be quite "vicious" at times....wouldn't you agree...??

I do not think Mike explained himself well, but I think Bart did a good job of explaining that it was different approaches to get to similar results.  Because one expresses a like or dislike on an approach, it should not be "seasoned" as a "complaint".  We don't need trigger words driving this thread into closure.

[David Good]

Qimage Ultimate is what I use. I did some tests a few years ago comparing it to printing through PS and LR, and, to my eye, Qimage was ahead by a nose. Many useful tools/utilities have been added since. The UI was never a problem for me, like any new program, it take a bit of poking around first until you get used to it.

[David Sutton]

This statement has been posted by several others but this was the easiest for me to clip out and highlight.  I would appreciate any uses of both products to clearly define for me what "visibly better results" means and how it is evaluated on real life prints (not artificial targets).  I'm not concerned with UIs as any one can master a program with enough effort (I use ArgyllCMS to do all my profiling and in this day of Windows/Mac OS, old fashioned command line programs can be a PITA).  I'm not trying to be argumentative here but rather as a scientist want to understand the evaluative method that is used.

I mean finer rendition of detail where that is important, and smoother gradients (for example a storm cloud that shifts from very dark to dark right across the print). Only a few percent of my prints really require that extra bit of care.

[David Sutton]

As to the usability of UIs in general, I guess I'm not used to having to "study the manual"! As, I said, sometime I'll put a day aside for Qimage and make notes as I go.
Here's an example of what I mean. (I'm ignoring the print package in LR as I find it a bit of a dog and don't use it much). If I want to print an image in LR I go to the print module and there are my presets on the left in the template browser. If I want to change the border, I enter the border I want under "layout" in the right panel, and the border I enter is what I will actually get on the print. For example, 2cm and not 2cm minus the non-printing area.
For Qimage I open the file from LR with the "edit in" option. Where are my presets? Well, I happen to know they are under "file-recall". But I don't see them yet. Again, I happen to know you have to press one of the lower buttons "JSLPOA" I guess it's P for print. Or is it J for print job?
Okay, I don't have a preset loaded on this computer. So I find the printer dialogue and select A3 sheet. Now I have a tiny thumbnail on the page. How do I make it fill/fill the page? I tried "edit page". No. I tried right clicking. No. Ah, there's a button on the right under the layout and it has an option "fit to page" I press it. No. Ah, the same button is on the thumbnail. Success.
I tried putting in a 2 cm border. Bother, Qimage is set to Imperial and I have to shut down my work to go to preferences. Okay, I'm in the page editor and "borders". Do I select B or B+? Well "B+" doesn't work so I stay with "B" and enter my 2cm border. Now "B" doesn't work and though I finally get a 2 cm border on the sides it is certainly not 2cm at the top and bottom.
I give up now.
David

[jrsforums]

As to the usability of UIs in general, I guess I'm not used to having to "study the manual"! As, I said, sometime I'll put a day aside for Qimage and make notes as I go.
Here's an example of what I mean. (I'm ignoring the print package in LR as I find it a bit of a dog and don't use it much). If I want to print an image in LR I go to the print module and there are my presets on the left in the template browser. If I want to change the border, I enter the border I want under "layout" in the right panel, and the border I enter is what I will actually get on the print. For example, 2cm and not 2cm minus the non-printing area.
For Qimage I open the file from LR with the "edit in" option. Where are my presets? Well, I happen to know they are under "file-recall". But I don't see them yet. Again, I happen to know you have to press one of the lower buttons "JSLPOA" I guess it's P for print. Or is it J for print job?
Okay, I don't have a preset loaded on this computer. So I find the printer dialogue and select A3 sheet. Now I have a tiny thumbnail on the page. How do I make it fill/fill the page? I tried "edit page". No. I tried right clicking. No. Ah, there's a button on the right under the layout and it has an option "fit to page" I press it. No. Ah, the same button is on the thumbnail. Success.
I tried putting in a 2 cm border. Bother, Qimage is set to Imperial and I have to shut down my work to go to preferences. Okay, I'm in the page editor and "borders". Do I select B or B+? Well "B+" doesn't work so I stay with "B" and enter my 2cm border. Now "B" doesn't work and though I finally get a 2 cm border on the sides it is certainly not 2cm at the top and bottom.
I give up now.
David

Time to RTFM....or in this case, watch the videos

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

As to the usability of UIs in general, I guess I'm not used to having to "study the manual"!

Hi David,

'Studying the manual' is very useful to learn and make better use of a powerful tool. To assist in that, the documentation offers a lot of "Learn by example" scenarios, which will hand-hold you with accomplishing common tasks in a simple step-by-step fashion. There is also a number of videos available, for 'beginner' level users on the basics, and intermediate and more advanced topics for somewhat more experienced users trying to accomplish very specific tasks. Links to the relevant videos is even one button click away, the small red 'V' icons in the various dialogs.

Here's an example of what I mean.
[...]
If I want to change the border, I enter the border I want under "layout" in the right panel, and the border I enter is what I will actually get on the print. For example, 2cm and not 2cm minus the non-printing area.

Unless I misunderstand you, you got exactly what you entered, how is that an issue? It would only be an issue if you wanted to have a border that includes the non-printable area. For that you override the printer's physical limitations with the earlier mentioned "margins" dialog. Because QU cannot read your mind (yet ), you'll have to tell it what you want.

For Qimage I open the file from LR with the "edit in" option. Where are my presets? Well, I happen to know they are under "file-recall". But I don't see them yet. Again, I happen to know you have to press one of the lower buttons "JSLPOA" I guess it's P for print. Or is it J for print job?

You make it sound dramatic, but the buttons for the various types of scenarios you can save/recall for later use do have tool-tips when you hover the mouse pointer over the buttons. No need to guess, at all. It's all there, in plain sight. You can even switch that built in help behavior on or off (because some of the tool tips give a lot of info, which might clutter the interface on occasion), maybe that's what you did, switch the tool-tip (content sensitive) help off?

In addition, you already have part of the list with all saved scenarios in front of you, with lots of additional info about the scenario's specifics, ready to scroll through. The buttons are just a filter to make a selection from that long list, to reduce the amount of scrolling. Again, QU is trying to reduce the number of mouse clicks required to achieve your goal.

Okay, I don't have a preset loaded on this computer. So I find the printer dialogue and select A3 sheet. Now I have a tiny thumbnail on the page. How do I make it fill/fill the page? I tried "edit page". No. I tried right clicking. No. Ah, there's a button on the right under the layout and it has an option "fit to page" I press it. No. Ah, the same button is on the thumbnail. Success.

Yes, it's as easy as pie. You set-up the printer/paper combination, select the thumbnail of your image and instruct how large the thumbnailed file should be printed on the paper you selected earlier. No need to try clicking on all sorts of things that don't achieve the task, just click on the thumbnail itself and select the size which will be positioned on the page as instructed earlier, or when you change your mind you can rearrange them in other ways. If you made a mistake, just click the little 'print properties' button on the layout preview, and select another size. That also allows to simply produce multiple copies of different sizes of the same source file, by adding multiple copies to the Queue, and adjust their sizes where the are positioned, and the page gets adjusted depending on how you've set the page filling method (e.g. to save paper by automatically fitting as many images on a single page size, or other arrangements).

I tried putting in a 2 cm border. Bother, Qimage is set to Imperial and I have to shut down my work to go to preferences.

No, you don't have to 'shut down your work', you just change the preferences from imperial inches to metric millimetres (usually done once after installing the program for the first time, but for international use one can switch any time, without having to use a calculator). And then you just continue from where you were.

Okay, I'm in the page editor and "borders". Do I select B or B+?

The tool tip will tell you that 'B' type of borders go inside, and the B+ borders are added outside, of the selected print size. No need to guess, just select what you want to do. There's no need to click on all sorts of options that obviously won't do what you want.

Well "B+" doesn't work so I stay with "B" and enter my 2cm border. Now "B" doesn't work and though I finally get a 2 cm border on the sides it is certainly not 2cm at the top and bottom.
I give up now.

Maybe it's something else that's bothering you, but you seem to get frustrated very easily. What's 'worse', it's preventable. Just have a look at some of the videos (one mouse click away), or the learn-by-example documented exercises, and enjoy your output.

Cheers,
Bart

[Ernst Dinkla]

Should a user interface be judged on its compensations for our laziness in learning a program?  Or should it be judged on how it packages the choices to be made that the most used are easy to access, repeatable and informative while less common used are more hidden to reduce the visual complexity of the GUI ?  Given the many printing functions in QU, not available in other programs, it would be impossible to do the first in my opinion while it does a good job on the last. David's tale on the 20mm borders is not what I would describe as a review on QU's user interface in working conditions. It is a bit like the Start button in Windows, illogic to switch the computer off there but who cares about that after the fifth time you used it.

--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
April 2014, 600+ inkjet media white spectral plots.

[Simon Garrett]

Should a user interface be judged on its compensations for our laziness in learning a program?  Or should it be judged on how it packages the choices to be made that the most used are easy to access, repeatable and informative while less common used are more hidden to reduce the visual complexity of the GUI ? 

Good questions, but surely there is no single right answer. 

If a program is useful enough, some people will learn even a difficult UI.  But if the UI is difficult to learn and to remember, perhaps it is not self-explanatory or consistent, then some will judge it not worth the time spent learning it - especially if they don't use the program frequently. 

I used to use Qimage for all my printing.  But I don't print every day or even every week, and found that it took me a while to figure out how to do some of the things I needed.  The UI was not obvious, and the documentation (IMHO) was not great.  Then next time I needed to do the same thing, I sometimes found that the UI wasn't good enough to trigger half-remembered memories, and I'd have to learn it all again. 

As Lightroom's printing capabilities became greater I used Qimage less - which accentuated the problem of forgetting how to use it - and now I don't use it at all. 

I think to talk about "laziness" is not relevant here.  By that token, I could describe anyone who doesn't know what I know as too "lazy" to learn it.    We all have finite time to devote to photography, and make judgements about the utility of tools we use.  Being difficult to use definitely decreases utility, especially for tools we don't use every day.

[Mark D Segal]

I agree with Ernst (not about my "signal to noise ratio"  [:-)], as on review I think I hit the nail on the head from page 1 of this thread) but about the relative priority to put on U.I. convenience in deciding on a preferred printing application; it isn't - in my view anyhow - a foremost consideration. Different people have differing degrees of patience for mastering interfaces and reading documentation, some are more techno-masochistic than others; so be it, but not the primary matter in answering the OP's question. The original question was about relative print quality from these two applications. So Ernst is right - someone who uses both OPTIMALLY could have the highest value-added in contributing an answer focused on observation of printed output; however, the big proviso is that such person actually tested both applications in a scientifically appropriate manner - and I think we are all agreed this is not as simple as it may sound. Nonetheless, let us for a moment return to fundamentals in order to pick a way through the matters that come to mind in answering this question: first and foremost: what do we mean by "printing"?

In the broadest sense "printing" is everything we need to do with an image file from the time it hits the hard drive (and many of us would argue from the time we aim the camera, but let us confine this to the context of processing) until the paper emerges from the printer. So many factors intervene along the chain, I won't bore this erudite audience listing them, but to cut to the chase in context, a very key one is the whole package of stuff one does or is done editing the file to optimize the quality of how it will print. That immediately takes us into the realm of software and software user capabilities, which I like to unpack into two major categories: (i) things that happen under the hood - algorithm design/computational factors) and (ii) things the user may control.

Starting with (i), there are more issues than I know about, but two that come immediately to mind are the colour management system (CMS) and the printer driver. ICC profile awareness is a given. Some applications may use LCMS or the computer CMS, some may use custom printer drivers or the printer manufacturers' drivers. So perhaps the first thing to do is to test for which "under-the-hood" package delivers better outcomes (of course the meaning of "outcomes" explicitly defined - let us say in respect of smoothness of tonal gradations, extent of detail rendition, similarity of monitor to print output, etc.) Not easy but perhaps doable. Then there is factor (ii), and here there is a bit of further unpacking to do, because no one application covers all the things one could do for improving the prospects of achieving a high quality print. This unpacking is again primarily about two factors: (1) the stand-alone features of the primary application, and (2) the manner in which this application cooperates with complementary applications providing different capabilities.

I think the above provides a decently organized framework within which to evaluate and discuss the relative merits of QImage vs Lightroom, or other "printing" application in respect of achieving a high quality result. I shall not actually try here to implement this framework because my familiarity with QImage is limited to watching Mike's videos on his website, whereas I have been printing with Lightroom for years.

But in case its of any interest to those thinking about their options, in respect of the latter I can say with confidence based on extensive experience that my colour management set-up works very well, I achieve sharp output without visible halos, and my colours, tonal gradations and B&W renditions are at a level to be expected from an Epson 4900. While over 90% of my work goes straight from camera to print within LR, I find it's complementarity with Photoshop works very well, which is a great asset because there are numerous things LR is not designed for, but PS is; as well, certain specialized third-party applications work as plug-ins to LR, which comes in handy. While masking in LR had a rather "basic" start, with version 5.x it has become vastly better, and with some practice much masking for which I would revert to Photoshop I can now successfully manage in LR. While in LR's earlier days I would still print from PS, printing matured in LR with the recent versions; for my needs (one photo at a time, or layouts of a number of photos on a sheet, or the production of the odd pano on roll paper, all up to 17" width) I find the usage of LR's print module to be easy, well integrated with the Epson driver, and reliable - from my experience, paper wastage does not occur for any fault in the Print module. That about sums up my experience with this application; yes, this or that could be improved, a few additional features are always on the wish-list, but grosso modo, for me, this is a brilliant application. I don't know whether this helps any one, but for the record, I have been doing digital imaging from scanning and DSLRs for the past 14 years and well-known professionals have commented on the quality of my printed output. I take it from that I may have an objectively decent basis from which to offer these observations.

Mark

[mchaney]

As to the usability of UIs in general, I guess I'm not used to having to "study the manual"! As, I said, sometime I'll put a day aside for Qimage and make notes as I go.
Here's an example of what I mean. (I'm ignoring the print package in LR as I find it a bit of a dog and don't use it much). If I want to print an image in LR I go to the print module and there are my presets on the left in the template browser. If I want to change the border, I enter the border I want under "layout" in the right panel, and the border I enter is what I will actually get on the print. For example, 2cm and not 2cm minus the non-printing area.
For Qimage I open the file from LR with the "edit in" option. Where are my presets? Well, I happen to know they are under "file-recall". But I don't see them yet. Again, I happen to know you have to press one of the lower buttons "JSLPOA" I guess it's P for print. Or is it J for print job?
Okay, I don't have a preset loaded on this computer. So I find the printer dialogue and select A3 sheet. Now I have a tiny thumbnail on the page. How do I make it fill/fill the page? I tried "edit page". No. I tried right clicking. No. Ah, there's a button on the right under the layout and it has an option "fit to page" I press it. No. Ah, the same button is on the thumbnail. Success.
I tried putting in a 2 cm border. Bother, Qimage is set to Imperial and I have to shut down my work to go to preferences. Okay, I'm in the page editor and "borders". Do I select B or B+? Well "B+" doesn't work so I stay with "B" and enter my 2cm border. Now "B" doesn't work and though I finally get a 2 cm border on the sides it is certainly not 2cm at the top and bottom.
I give up now.
David

That's the perspective of a LR user using QU.  Now I want to show you the same type of perspective from a QU user using LR...

The problem here is that you are starting this task like a "seasoned Adobe product user" in that you are trying to make it as complicated as possible because that's what you are used to.  Instead of trying to force QU down the path of LR, try using it as it is designed.  For example, you have decided that you must start with the limitation that you have to pick a predefined layout.  You don't because QU doesn't have that limitation: it can build a layout as you go with you picking nothing more than the size on the fly!  In fact, the steps are:

- Click the "print properties" button on a thumbnail and select "Fit to Page" as the size.
- On that same print properties dialog, decide with the crop (scissors) button whether you want an exact size (cropped) print or one fitted without cropping.
- On that same print properties dialog, enter 20mm in border 1 and decide what color you want.
- Click the "+" button on any thumbnail(s) and they all are added to the page(s) with the above settings.
- I notice the page is already set to 720 (based on the current Epson printer), so I click print.

Your statement about borders makes no sense.  You choose either B or B+ depending on whether you want the border inside the print size (fit to page chosen above) or outside (added to that size).  There are only two choices and the border top/bottom is never different than the sides.  That is, unless you use the Photo Mats feature where you can make them uneven.  In this case, you've chosen the largest print possible on the page, so only B makes sense at this point: you cannot add border around the outside of the print because your print already fills the page.

Here's the same process above that took just a few clicks in QU, done in LR:

- Select an image from the library and click on "Print" module
- Scroll down and finally find "Maximum Size" in the templates, select it
- My landscape print rotates as it should and sorta fills the page, except it doesn't fill the page: white space left/right.
- Try to find a way to crop the image to size to fill the page...
- Look on the right for a "crop to size".  I find nothing related to the print options that might do that.
- I see "Keep square" which doesn't even make sense because my image isn't square.
- Ah, I see "Zoom to fill" under "Image Settings": that works.
- On to the border, where do I specify a border?  I try "Stroke border".  It works, but...
- I'm looking for a way to specify a 0.75 inch border.  All I can get is "points".  Where is the size of the border: I want inches?
- Not only can I not find how to specify 0.75 inch, it'll only let me go to 20 points which looks too small for what I want.
- I give up on the border and leave it at 20 "points".  That'll have to be big enough.
- Before I print, I'd better scroll down and check other settings: what's this... 600 PPI in the resolution?
- I'm already set to an Epson printer which I know uses 720 PPI, why is LR set to 600?
- I change that to 720 and print.

And that's the simplest of print tasks.  I don't even want to show you the LR steps when you want to decide print sizes on the fly, such as deciding the sizes as you go: "I want a 5x7 of this... 8x10 of this... two wallets of this... etc."  Those are each ONE click in QU.  Even a simple task like deciding you want 2 5x7 prints on page 2 after doing your first one fit-to-page is nearly impossible in LR.

Of course, there are other tasks in QU that are incredibly easy that are made quite difficult (or impossible) in LR.  Take database searching for example.  In QU, here's the process for entering searchable data to finding it at a later time:

I want to enter "Red Hibiscus" on a folder I just downloaded so I'll be able to find it later, so I've already typed "Red Hibiscus" in the folder description ("D" box below the folder name) when I downloaded the photos.  There wasn't even anything I needed to click: just type the description as the box is already there.  Days/Weeks/Months later, when I want to find red flowers or that red hibiscus, I:

- Click the search button (binoculars button just above the thumbs).
- Type the word "Red", press <enter> twice, and there are all the folders/images that have "red" in the description
- I double click on the one in the list that says "Red Hibiscus" and I'm there.

First of all, that can't even be done in LR: you can't have a description on a folder.  Only on individual images.  And the dialogs required to do that (and later search), are hidden layers deep.   In addition, LR can only have DB info on files that support embedded IPTC.  So as an Android/web developer, folders or images that contain GIF, PNG, or BMP files where I've typed something like "Emoji icons" can't be seen or searched by LR.  But I guess that's not a problem anyway because LR can't even see those files in the first place.

Mike

[AFairley]

You realize that Chris has nothing to do with Lightroom, right? So, are you saying since you and Chris don't get along, you feel free to complain about an entirely different product because it's still produced by Adobe? You realize how that sounds, right?

Jeff, you are mischaracterizing what Mike wrote.  He said a (presumably) authorized representative of Adobe bad mouthed his product in public forums.  That's a corporate action.  Let's keep the discussion honest, shall we?

[Ernst Dinkla]

The problem here is that you are starting this task like a "seasoned Adobe product user" in that you are trying to make it as complicated as possible because that's what you are used to.  Instead of trying to force QU down the path of LR, try using it as it is designed.  For example, you have decided that you must start with the limitation that you have to pick a predefined layout.  You don't because QU doesn't have that limitation: it can build a layout as you go with you picking nothing more than the size on the fly!  In fact, the steps are:

- Click the "print properties" button on a thumbnail and select "Fit to Page" as the size.
- On that same print properties dialog, decide with the crop (scissors) button whether you want an exact size (cropped) print or one fitted without cropping.
- On that same print properties dialog, enter 20mm in border 1 and decide what color you want.
- Click the "+" button on any thumbnail(s) and they all are added to the page(s) with the above settings.
- I notice the page is already set to 720 (based on the current Epson printer), so I click print.

Your statement about borders makes no sense.  You choose either B or B+ depending on whether you want the border inside the print size (fit to page chosen above) or outside (added to that size).  There are only two choices and the border top/bottom is never different than the sides.  That is, unless you use the Photo Mats feature where you can make them uneven.  In this case, you've chosen the largest print possible on the page, so only B makes sense at this point: you cannot add border around the outside of the print because your print already fills the page.


Mike

I think David starts from sheet feeding and wants the image in the center + 20mm white borders without cutting the sheet afterwards. Usually that requires the crop scissors to be on and print margin compensation in the preferences set so they equal 20mm all around. Without the crop function and the image not centered you can reduce the paper cutting to one side. It will be a rare case where an image has the aspect ratio that will fit the sheet size aspect ratio minus 20mm all around.


--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
April 2014, 600+ inkjet media white spectral plots.

[Schewe]

That's a corporate action.

No, it's not...I'm well aware of the dispute between Mike & Chris...I was there and watched it. And, yes, I agree that Chris was far from a perfect gentleman, but Mike gave as good as he got. Which again has ZERO to do with the discussion of Lightroom, wouldn't you agree?