The first time you open Qimage, the first thing you want to do is select and configure your printer. Choose the icon of the printer with a wrench across it. Choose your paper, paper size and feed, borderless or not, printer resolution you want to use, paper orientation, and any other options. Since I have Epson printers, I always use either borderless or maximum in the printable area section to that my images are centered on the paper. You can change these settings at any time, but it’s good to know that this is where you set your basic paper size – not in Qimage itself. The next time you open Qimage, it will remember the printer and settings that you chose last. Choose 8.5x11 paper for these instructions.

There are some options at the lower right side of the page. If you want to use a printer or monitor profile, click on the colored writing beside Printer ICC or Monitor ICC and find the appropriate profile. If you use a printer profile, Qimage will also recognize any special color spaces you’ve used for your images (in my case, a special D7 profile), but you might want to start without any profiles and see how it goes.

There is also an interpolation setting in this area. Click on it. Try clicking on the various interpolation methods to see what each does with the sample. I normally use Vector, but occasionally Lanczos. In the lower right of that screen, check the Smart Sharpening setting. If you haven’t previously done a final sharpening on your photo, Smart Sharpening is wonderful. You can select the amount that you want – even at the maximum setting, it usually prints okay, but I leave mine about in the middle most of the time…this, of course, depends on taste.

Next you want to find some photos to work on. On the upper left side of the screen, click Select Folder and find a folder of photos. Qimage will create thumbnails in the large panel on the left side – it could take a while the first time that folder is opened. Qimage will remember the last few folders you opened, so after you’ve used it a while you can just click on the arrow above Select Folder and choose the folder you want to use. You can also put some images from one folder in the queue and then select another folder and use some photos from that one, etc.

Let’s put some photos on your page. We’ll have Qimage crop your photos, so click on the scissors icon just below the photo sizes on the right side of the screen. Let’s put two 5x7 photos on this page – so click on 5x7 or 7x5 in the choices under Prints. If there’s only one shaded area on your page, you can either click on whichever paper isn’t already chosen next to the scissors icon or on the other icon (6th and 7th from the left) at the top of the page, depending on whether your photos are in portrait or landscape mode. (This strictly for viewing and doesn’t affect whether your printer will print in landscape or portrait mode.)

Now look at the two shaded areas on your “paper”. How they are spaced depends on the third group of icons at the top of the page. Click on each one and see what happens to your shaded areas, then use the one you like best.

There are three ways to get the photos into the queue (onto the “paper”)…double click on a photo, drag a photo into the queue at the bottom of the screen, or drag a photo to the “paper” – they all do the same thing. So put a couple of photos into the queue. If you want to remove a photo from the queue, highlight it first, then right click; you can then remove just that photo (Remove from queue) or remove all the photos from the queue (Clear queue). You can also right click anywhere in the thumbnail area and choose Select All to have an entire folder printed.

To check or change your cropping, double click on the first photo on the “paper”. This will bring up the editor. The bright part of the image is what will print. Try dragging a corner down and moving the crop around just for practice. If you want to leave the original crop and make no changes, just click the X in the corner to close this screen – it will go back to the main screen. If you want to apply this crop, click Done. This will bring up another screen. To apply the crop to just this image, click Okay. Now go look at the original thumbnail – it has the new crop and the filename beneath it has changed to red, indicating a filter has been applied to the image. You can easily remove this filter for later prints by clicking the thumbnail once to select it, then right-clicking and choosing Delete Associative Filter.

You can click on the printer icon and it will print the photos as they appear on the “paper”.

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Tricia
Minolta Dimage D7(UG), Epson 2200, PS7, Qimage