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Qimage and Full Editor (Photo Shop, Paint Shop Pro, etc.)

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Alan53077

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I'm new at this game and I've got a threshold quesiton.

Lots of posters in this forum have said that they use a full fledge photo editor (Photoshop 6, photoshop elements, PSP, etc.) in conjunction with Qimage. I'm trying to figure out just what 'in conjunction' means. For photos that don't need the fancy stuff, do people use Qimage all by itself, or is there an advantage to using an editor together with Qimage even when you aren't doing anything special?

Say you have an untouched photo and all you need to do is some basic retouching (re-sizing, croping, rotating, a little redeye reduction, maybe a little tweaking of sharpen and light settings). If the functions you need are in Qimage, is there any reason why the final result will be better by using your full fledge editor??

Conversely, if you are using your full fledge editor to tweak a photo and are now ready to print a simple 8 by 10 all by itself, is there any reason why your editor wouldn't print just as great a copy as Qimage?

Finally, how do Qimage and the typical full fledge editor interact with printer driver software? For example, my Epson 890 driver has special settings for printing photos of people, etc.; should I be turning those settings off when I'm using Qimage or a full fledge editor to print?
 
Alan Sinsheimer said:
I'm new at this game and I've got a threshold quesiton.

Lots of posters in this forum have said that they use a full fledge
photo editor (Photoshop 6, photoshop elements, PSP, etc.) in
conjunction with Qimage. I'm trying to figure out just what 'in
conjunction' means. For photos that don't need the fancy stuff, do
people use Qimage all by itself, or is there an advantage to using
an editor together with Qimage even when you aren't doing anything
special?

Say you have an untouched photo and all you need to do is some
basic retouching (re-sizing, croping, rotating, a little redeye
reduction, maybe a little tweaking of sharpen and light settings).
If the functions you need are in Qimage, is there any reason why
the final result will be better by using your full fledge editor??
Click to expand...
Qimage is perfect for doing these things, especially if you have a bunch of prints to do. Qimage makes it easier to print multiple sizes on one page and not waste paper, it is harder to set this up in photoshop. For instance if you have a bunch of pics you want to print at 4x6 then qimage will do the minor retouching and handle the positioning on the paper and the printing.
Alan53077 said:
Conversely, if you are using your full fledge editor to tweak a
photo and are now ready to print a simple 8 by 10 all by itself, is
there any reason why your editor wouldn't print just as great a
copy as Qimage?
Click to expand...
Not always, Qimage can use Lanczos encoding which create little noise when scaling prints up to larger sizes. So there are times that printing in qimage is better.

Photoshop is great if you are doing some special effects or merging two images or the really complex stuff.
Alan53077 said:
Finally, how do Qimage and the typical full fledge editor interact
with printer driver software? For example, my Epson 890 driver has
special settings for printing photos of people, etc.; should I be
turning those settings off when I'm using Qimage or a full fledge
editor to print?
Click to expand...
In most cases both QImage and otheres take care of the color profiling and you get better results with those features turned off on the printer driver. It si one of those things that you need to experiment with and check your results, there are lots of variables involving software, inks, paper, color profiles, conversions etc.

I use qimage for most of my printing, but I also use photoshop, but more often than not I use qimage, can't beat it for the price and the support through the qimage email list.

If you have any more questions just let me know.
 
Thanks for the reply, Alan (spelled correctly!). I have a few follow up questions below
Alan Smallbone said:
Qimage is perfect for doing these things, especially if you have a
bunch of prints to do. Qimage makes it easier to print multiple
sizes on one page and not waste paper, it is harder to set this up
in photoshop. For instance if you have a bunch of pics you want to
print at 4x6 then qimage will do the minor retouching and handle
the positioning on the paper and the printing.
Click to expand...
OK, but is there any reason to believe that PS might do a better job than Qimage on things that they both do, or am I safe just using Qimage for those things?
Alan Smallbone said:
Qimage can use Lanczos encoding which create little
noise when scaling prints up to larger sizes. So there are times
that printing in qimage is better.
Photoshop is great if you are doing some special effects or merging
two images or the really complex stuff.
Click to expand...
Are there also times when PS will do a better job in printing than Qimage? Or am I safe using Qimage for pretty much all of my printing (including for printing photos that I manipulate with PS)?

Thanks again for your help, Alan.

Alan
 
Alan said:
Thanks for the reply, Alan (spelled correctly!).
Click to expand...
The only way to spell it :->
Alan53077 said:
OK, but is there any reason to believe that PS might do a better
job than Qimage on things that they both do, or am I safe just
using Qimage for those things?
Click to expand...
This is a matter of opinion and taste, IMHO and YMMV, Qimage will do just fine for that. I use qimage far more than photoshop, it is faster and easier to use and I think it prints better. It also may be better depending on your camera, I am using the E-10 and the author has a specific color profile for the E-10 and it makes a difference.

If you are learning both programs, the learning curve for Qimage to get excellent prints is far less than the ps.
Alan53077 said:
Are there also times when PS will do a better job in printing than
Qimage? Or am I safe using Qimage for pretty much all of my
printing (including for printing photos that I manipulate with PS)?
Click to expand...
Not that I have found in my printing experiences. I use it to print everything, I will manipulate in ps or qimage and then print using qimage.

Qimage you can even batch process and print your pictures so it is a little more convenient than ps.
Alan53077 said:
Thanks again for your help, Alan.
Click to expand...
Anytime, Alan!
Alan53077 said:
Alan
Click to expand...
Alan
 
Alan,

I use Picture Window Pro for image editing, QImage for printing. Other than cropping, or printing contact sheets, I very rarely use the other editing features of QImage. The reason is simple, I'm used to PW, and it is much faster in applying the alterations. The few times I have used them, is simply because of the non-destructive nature of the alterations. But I leave resampling to QImage, I don't worry about the size of the image, just about how it looks, QImage does a great job fitting the image to the paper size I want it to.

Also, the control of the effects is somewhat cruder in QImage, an image editor should offer better control (and thus make it easier to get it right), and I find QImage a bit slow on TIFF. Now that QImage can read the color profiles from PW, it is a simple transformation from editing to printing. BTW, PW can also do complex printing, but here QImage is much quicker in doing what I want it to do, so I guess speed seems to win.

my 2c's, Chris
Alan Sinsheimer said:
I'm new at this game and I've got a threshold quesiton.

Lots of posters in this forum have said that they use a full fledge
photo editor (Photoshop 6, photoshop elements, PSP, etc.) in
conjunction with Qimage. I'm trying to figure out just what 'in
conjunction' means. For photos that don't need the fancy stuff, do
people use Qimage all by itself, or is there an advantage to using
an editor together with Qimage even when you aren't doing anything
special?

Say you have an untouched photo and all you need to do is some
basic retouching (re-sizing, croping, rotating, a little redeye
reduction, maybe a little tweaking of sharpen and light settings).
If the functions you need are in Qimage, is there any reason why
the final result will be better by using your full fledge editor??

Conversely, if you are using your full fledge editor to tweak a
photo and are now ready to print a simple 8 by 10 all by itself, is
there any reason why your editor wouldn't print just as great a
copy as Qimage?

Finally, how do Qimage and the typical full fledge editor interact
with printer driver software? For example, my Epson 890 driver has
special settings for printing photos of people, etc.; should I be
turning those settings off when I'm using Qimage or a full fledge
editor to print?
Click to expand...
 
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