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Qimage

Qimage

u Overview

u Getting Familiar with Qimage

u Learn by Example

u Listing of major functions

u "Hidden" functions, hot keys, and other shortcuts

u FAQ

u Operational Notes

u Troubleshooting

u Visit the Qimage homepage for the latest release

u Worldwide Distributors

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Overview

What is Qimage?

Qimage is a digital imaging application that has grown from its simple roots of printing multiple images on a single page, to being one of the most frequently referred to and highly recommended digital image applications in the world. Qimage is designed to make image printing easy and painless by eliminating the need to resample images to higher resolutions, manually place images on printed pages, make touchups and apply filters in separate photo editors, etc. For a purchase price that is a mere fraction of the cost of high end photo editors, you get an application that is capable of producing professional quality prints that exceed the quality of nearly all other photo printing applications, even high end (read incredlibly expensive) photo editors. Although not designed to be (or replace) a full featured photo editor, the majority of the time you will find that Qimage is the only tool you need to enhance and/or print your digital images. With high quality image noise filtering, blemish and redeye removal, rotation, vector and Lanczos print interpolation, and many other "on the fly" tools, Qimage may make many of your other digital imaging tools obsolete.

Why Qimage?

Qimage offers many features and techniques not found in any other digital imaging software. Check out the features below, but please note that this is not a comprehensive list!

u Quality: Many professionals and amateurs agree, Qimage simply produces the best quality prints possible, bar none! Qimage is designed to print your original images at maximum quality, no matter what type of printer you are using and no matter what the resolution of your original images. Internal print optimization algorithms use vector or Lanczos resampling (much higher quality than traditional bicubic methods) to ensure that you never again have to worry about DPI, print sizes, or resolution numbers.

u Ease of use: In addition to never again needing to fiddle with resampling, resaving photos to 300 DPI, etc., Qimage offers an efficient and simple means to automaticaly arrange multiple prints so that they use the least amount of expensive photo paper.

u Flexibility: Numerous auto placement and full manual placement of images for maximum flexibility. You can print images from different folders and even different drives in the same session, all with different print sizes if you like!

u Posters: Print 20 images on one page for contact sheets, three 4x6 images per page on an 8x10 page, mixed sizes of different (or the same) images, or a multi-page poster of a single image that covers an entire wall. The possibilities are limitless!

u Professional quality filters: Cropping, brightness, contrast, sharpening, auto-exposure compensation, CCD noise filters, blemish and redeye removal, image rotation, mirror, image information stamp, and even an unsharp mask that beats even the best USM's in the industry are just some of the ways that you can enhance your images.

u Associative and batch filtering: You can apply filters that you design to images as "masks" that get assiciated with the original, eliminating the need to store separate/modified versions. Simply create your filter and associate that filter with the original and Qimage will apply the filter to the original each time the image is opened for viewing/printing. Of course, you can always save the filtered/modified images separately if you like, so that they may be used in other applications or the web. Filters you design can be applied to a single image or hundreds of different images from different folders in batch. For example, you could apply a dark frame subtraction to remove all the "hot pixels" in long exposure photographs, and apply the "fix" to a dozen different images that you just took.

u Color management (ICC) support: Full support to actually start managing your images for accurate color. Qimage allows you to link ICC profiles to multiple cameras separately so that you can ensure that you have the most accurate color possible. Also supports profile to profile conversions for images.

u Many supported image types: Qimage currently supports the following image types: JPEG, TIF, BMP, GIF, PCX, TGA, PCD, PNG, and NEF (Nikon D1 raw).

u Image Comparator: Compare any two images side-by-side using the built in "Image Comparator".

u Fully automated slide shows: Use Qimage at photo events to continuously display images for customers. Ability to auto-advance and stamp each image with information needed for clients to identify photographs.

u Image management: Copy, move, delete, auto-rename based on date, and download images from flash cards.

So how do I get started?

We recommend that you continue to the next section of the help, "Getting Familiar with Qimage". There, you will learn how to use the functions on the main window to navigate through your images and create printouts easily.

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Getting Familiar with Qimage

Getting Familiar with Qimage

Major areas of the main window:

1. The file tools: This group of six tool buttons handles loading and restoring program settings, print sessions, loading images from flash memory cards and saving individual print pages as image files.

2. Page orientation tools: This group of two tool buttons is used to identify/change the orientation of the printed page (portrait orientation shown above).

3. Image Placement tools: This group of seven tool buttons controls how images appear on the page. "Center" placement is shown above.

4. Actions tools: This group of buttons is used to perform actions on the images/prints currently in the queue (in your document). The first button allows you to re-sort prints by size (from largest to smallest) for better fit and easier cutting. The second "open book" icon opens the page editor where you can perform freehand/manual placement, add text, etc. The remaining buttons in area 4 are used to perform batch operations on all images in the queue: batch filter, view, convert, create email size copies, copy images, or compare images.

5. Printing tools: Area 5 has buttons related to printing functions. The first button is the printer setup button and is used to select and control the printer you are using, and can be used to change the paper size and print quality options. The second button is the print button that sends the current document to the printer.

6. Folder panel: Area 6 above is used to navigate/explore folders for the purpose of finding your images. You can use the dropdown to view the last folders used, or you can type the folder name directly into the prompt there. Right clicking in the folder dropdown allows you to manage the list of folders in the dropdown by adding/removing items from the list. You can click the "Select Folder" button to access the familiar explorer tree and navigate to all drives/folders accessible via your computer. Once a new folder is selected by any of these methods, the images in that folder will be displayed as small thumbnails in area 8.

7. Selecting and adding thumbnails: Since Qimage allows you to double click on thumbnails or drag them to the page to add them to the queue (your document), it is desirable to have a default size available for these operations that don't specifically indicate a print size. Note that that the size displayed here will only be used when adding thumbnails via double click or drag/drop. Adding images at different sizes (the "normal" workflow for most users) is accomplished by selecting thumbnails and then using the buttons in area 11. Area 7 simply shows you the last size you used so that you know what the default size is when adding images without specifying a size, i.e., when double clicking or dragging/dropping thumbnails. Tool buttons for "Select All", "Deselect All", "Add to queue", and "Preview" are also available for quick access and convenience.

8. Thumbnail/Files area: Area 8 shows the available images in the folder that you navigated to in area 6. Click on any thumbnail here and then right click to see what options are available to you. Right clicking in this area brings up a menu that shows the actions that apply to selected thumbnails in area 8. Selected thumbnails may also be dragged to the preview page (area 10) or to the queue (area 9). Note that you can change this area to show file names only (no images) by clicking "View", "Interface" from the main menu.

9. Area 9 is the queue. It shows all the images that have been selected for processing when you used the functions in area 8 to add images to the queue. Valuable information such as the selected print size, amount of spool space required to spool the prints, and whether filters have been applied will show in this area. Again, you may right click in this area to see the functions that apply to the queue area.

10. Preview page: The preview page shows how each printed page will look when printed. You can select prints on the page use the functions in area 11 to modify those prints, or right click on the preview page for other options (such as "delete page"). Images cannot be moved in a freehand or click/drag manner using this small preview page. Click the page editor tool button (second tool button in area 4) for more advanced and visual sizing/moving/annotation functions. Note that tool buttons for "Select All", "Deselect All", and "Remove selected prints" are provided here for convenience.

11. Print appearance controls: Area 11 shows the print appearance controls. These are functions that allow you to control the size, orientation, and borders of prints on the page. You may use the "Custom" button to select a print size not listed on the nine standard size buttons, however, each of the nine standard size buttons can also be redefined by right clicking on a size button and entering a new size for that button. These controls have dual functionality in that they can control the appearance of both new prints being added to the queue and existing prints on the preview page. The controls in this group always affect selected prints in the highlighted work area. There are two work areas on the main window, the thumbnail work area and the preview page work area. In the sample window above, the thumbnail work area is highlighted with a blue border. If the 4x6 button is clicked while the thumbnail work area is highlighted, the selected thumbnails will be added to the queue at a size of 4x6 with the options shown in area 11. Similarly, if the 4x6 button is pressed with the preview page work area highlighted, the selected prints on the preview page will be changed to 4x6 size. Once you learn to associate the buttons in area 11 with the highlighted work area, it will be easy to associate the functions in area 11 with both adding new prints, and changing the appearance of existing prints. Practice changing the highlighted work area from the thumbnail area to the preview page and vice versa by clicking in the thumbnail area, then clicking on the preview page, taking note of how the current work area is highlighted. Remember that when you use controls in area 11, you are only affecting the selected items in the highlighted work area. Note that clicking on thumbnails or existing prints to switch work areas will also select the thumb/print under the mouse cursor as well. If you do not wish to make any selections in those areas but just want to switch to one of the two work areas without making a thumbnail/print selection, try clicking in the areas marked with the [image] red circles on the sample window above. To see an example of how to use the size buttons in different ways, see "Learn by Example: Example 3" and the two workflows mentioned at the bottom of that example.

12. Print processing: Area 12 shows all parameters that affect the quality/appearance of your printout. It is always wise to review the information here before printing. The parameters in this section are designed to show "all green" if recommended settings are being used. Items that may need to be addressed in order to obtain optimal output will display in red. You may change the parameters by clicking on the desired parameter if you would like to change something prior to printing your document. Left click on the selected item to toggle through settings or right click to display the more detailed properties window.

A note about the top menu bar (with File, Utilities, View, etc).

Although the toolbar areas (1 through 5 above) serve as quick access to the most common features in Qimage, the top menu bar (main menu) offers additional functionality such as the ability to sort thumbnails by date, type, or name, ability to view large or small thumbnails, etc.

A brief overview of main menu selections:

u File: Used to load/save settings and sessions, set the printing mode (print to printer or file), print setup, etc.

u Utilities: Used to access and set up external utilities that are used in conjunction with Qimage.

u View: Controls the view (appearance) of the main window.

u Images: Used to perform functions on selected thumbnails/files from area 8.

u Queue: Used to perform certain actions or process images that are in the queue.

u Prints: Used to control the appearance and options related to prints on the printed page.

u Page: Used to control the format, orientation, size, etc. of pages in the document.

u Settings: Used to select options related to the overall performance of Qimage.

u Help: Access to help features.

Printing Multiple Images: The Simplest Workflow

Due to the very high level of functionality available in Qimage, typical workflows can vary widely depending on whether or not you need/want to filter your images, you need to review them first using the slide show, etc. The following, however, is a good baseline of how to quickly print images assuming you know which images you would like to print:

1. Check areas 2 and 3 above to make sure that you have the page orientation and image placement settings set to produce the desired print appearance. After becoming familiar with the program a bit, a quick glance at area 10 will give you this information immediately and depending on your printing needs, you may not need to change these settings often.

2. Set the image fitting method to use by clicking the small scissors icon in the lower left of area 11. When the button is depressed (down), images will be cropped if needed to ensure that prints are the exact size indicated. In contrast, a button status of up indicates that you want the entire image printed within the frame size selected, shrinking the image to a smaller size if needed so that the entire image fits within the frame. Using the latter, although it ensures that the entire image is printed, may result in "white space" within a given frame size if the aspect ratio of your image does not match the size you have selected.

3. Use area 6 to navigate to a folder that contains images that you want to print.

4. Select one or more thumbnails from area 8 and then click the desired size in area 11. The images will be added to the queue (printed document) at the size selected.

5. If you don't care about the order/placement of your images and simply want to ensure that the minimum amount of paper is used, click the optimal image placement button (first button in area 3) and then click the "Sort Prints" button (first button in area 4) to collate your images from largest to smallest and make cutting the photos from the page easier.

6. Review area 12 to confirm the settings you will use to print and then click the print tool button in area 5.

Note: the above identifies a method of printing multiple images at the same print size. A vast array of functions exists which allow you to change the appearance of your printout even after you have added images, but the above identifies the minimum recommended steps to simple multiple image printing. If you routinely print multiple images at different sizes within the same printout, simply select thumbnails one at a time and click the desired size in area 11.

Printing Multiple Images: Previewing each image prior to adding to the queue

The following outlines the simple steps required to preview images prior to printing.

1. Check areas 2 and 3 above to make sure that you have the page orientation and image placement settings set to produce the desired print appearance. After becoming familiar with the program a bit, a quick glance at area 10 will give you this information immediately and depending on your printing needs, you may not need to change these settings often.

2. Set the image fitting method to use by clicking the small scissors icon in the lower left of area 11. When the button is depressed (down), images will be cropped if needed to ensure that prints are the exact size indicated. In contrast, a button status of up indicates that you want the entire image printed within the frame size selected, shrinking the image to a smaller size if needed so that the entire image fits within the frame. Using the latter, although it ensures that the entire image is printed, may result in "white space" within a given frame size if the aspect ratio of your image does not match the size you have selected.

3. Use area 6 to navigate to a folder that contains images that you want to print.

4. In area 8, select all thumbnails that you believe to be candidates for printing. You can multi-select using the standard Windows Ctrl-click or Shift-click methods. If you would like to preview all thumbnails in the current folder, simply right click in the thumbnail area and click "Select All". All thumbnails will be selected.

5. Click the "Preview Selected" button in area 7.

6. Images will be displayed in a separate window and in a larger format. You may use that window to scroll forward/back in through the selected thumbs using the left and right arrow buttons.

7. As each image is displayed in the large preview window, you may use the buttons in area 11 to add the currently displayed image to the queue at the size selected. Once you have added as many copies of the current image as you like, simply click the left or right arrow buttons to proceed to the next image.

8. Once you have reviewed all selected thumbs and added the prints you desire, close the preview window. Note that you can determine when you have reached the end of the list by looking at the right arrow button. The right (next) button grays out and is disabled when the end of the list is reached.

9. If you don't care about the order/placement of your images and simply want to ensure that the minimum amount of paper is used, click the optimal image placement button (first button in area 3) and then click the "Sort Prints" button (first button in area 4) to collate your images from largest to smallest and make cutting the photos from the page easier.

10. Review area 12 to confirm the settings you will use to print and then click the print tool button in area 5.

Changing/Modifying Settings After Adding Images to the Queue

There are a host of options available for changing the appearance of your pages/prints even after you have created a document. Many commonly used features such as ability to change the size or fit of prints on the page, etc. can be accessed simply by selecting one or more prints on the preview page(s) and then using the controls in area 11.Visual/manual sizing and placement and more complex functions can be performed by opening the full page editor using a right click on the preview page and selecting "Edit Page".

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Learn by Example

Qimage - Learn by Example:

A general note on using these examples: Qimage always remembers all program selections (parameters) so that the next time you use the software, you will start with the same settings you used in your last session. For this reason, once you've performed steps such as selecting a placement method, fitting and image lock, you will not have to perform these same steps each time. For example, once you perform steps 1 through 3 in example 2, there is no need to repeat them again since these settings will be retained.

Table of Contents:

Section I: The Basics

u Example 1: Setting Qimage to Produce Maximum Quality Prints

u Example 2: Printing Multiple Images at the Same Size (in this example, 4x6 images)

u Example 3: Printing Multiple Images at Different Sizes (in this example, one 7x5, one 5x3 and one 3x2)

u Example 3a: Creating a Single Multi-Purpose Crop that Works for Multiple Print Sizes (in this example, a 5x7, 4x6, and 3.5x5 print)

u Example 3b: Printing Images at their Original (Scanned) Size

u Example 3c: Reviewing Images and Selecting Prints in an Integrated Workflow

u Example 4: Printing Many Copies of One Image (in this example, 9 wallets at 3x2 size)

u Example 5: Printing a Specified Number of Prints to Each Page (in this example, dividing the page into 9 prints as large as possible on the page)

u Example 6: Printing a Multi Page Poster of a Single Image (in this example, printing a 2 page by 2 page poster for a total of 4 pages)

u Example 7: Printing a Contact Sheet of Small Images that Includes the File Name Under Each Print

u Example 7a: Printing a Professional Contact Sheet of Small Images that Includes image and EXIF info

u Example 7b: Printing a Package of Predefined Sizes for all Selected Images (in this case three 4x6 and one 3x2 print)

u Example 8: Printing a Text Annotation Under Prints

u Example 9: Creating a Template that Specifies Custom Image Sizes/Locations (in this example, one 4x6 and four 3x2 prints)

u Example 10: Printing Using Custom Templates Created in Example 9

u Example 11: Moving the Crop Area when "Crop Image" is Turned On (instead of accepting Qimage's default of cropping out the center of an image when fitting)

u Example 12: Downsizing Images for Web/Email

u Example 13: Converting Nikon D1 NEF Images to TIF

u Example 14: Viewing and Printing Nikon D1 NEF images

Section II: Making Changes

u Example 15: Changing the Size of Existing Prints (in this example, changing a 6x4 print to a 3x2 print)

u Example 16: Changing the "Image Fitting" of Existing Prints (in this example, turning off "Crop Image" on a 6x4 print)

u Example 17: Rotating Existing Prints on the Page

u Example 17a: Rotating Images so that the Thumbnails/Images Always Appear Upright When Displayed on Screen

Section III: Working with ICC Profiles

u Example 18: Using ICC Profiles with Original Images from a Digital Camera (in this example, a Nikon CP990)

u Example 19: Using ICC Profiles with Modified Images from a Digital Camera (in this example, a Nikon CP990)

u Example 20: Identifying Which Monitor and Printer Profile to Use

u Example 21: Verifying that the Proper ICC Profile is Being Used for your Camera

u Example 22: Using a Camera Profile to Profile Images for the Web

u Example 23: How to Avoid "Double Profiling"

Section IV: Advanced Printing

u Example 24: Creating a Scrapbook Page

u Example 25: Visual/Manual Placement and Sizing of Images

u Example 25a: Preparing Pages of Prints to be Sent to an [Online] Printing Service

Section IV: Advanced Profiling

u Example 26: How to Create TIFF images with your Camera's ICC Profile Embedded

u Example 27: How to Create ICC Embedded, Linear 16 bit TIFF images from RAW files

u Example 28: How to Associate ICC Profiles with Individual Images Using the Batch Filter

Section I: The Basics

Example 1: Setting Qimage to Produce Maximum Quality Prints

1.  Click the "Printer Setup" tool button. Select your photo printer and click "Properties" for the printer, making sure that your printer driver settings are set to the highest quality photo settings and select the appropriate media type/size (photo glossy, etc).

2.  Check the "Print Processing" panel in the lower right of the main window and make sure that your "Print Interpolation" setting indicates "Max/High/Vector". If it doesn't, simply point to the setting and when the hand appears, click the link and change your interpolation settings.

3.  Still in the "Print Processing" panel, check the "Printer ICC" setting and make sure that you have identified an ICC profile for your printer and the type of media you are using if you have an ICC profile for your printer/paper/ink combination. See the Color Management section for more details. If you do not have a custom printer ICC profile for the printer, paper, and ink you are using, simply leave "Printer ICC" set to "OFF".

4.  Finally, on the "Print Processing" panel, make sure that all three checkboxes are not checked. This will ensure that no borders or text information are printed with your prints, and will ensure that no global filter is active that may affect the appearance of prints.

Example 2: Printing Multiple Images at the Same Size (in this example, 4x6 images)

1. Click the "Optimal" tool button at the top of the main window. This instructs Qimage to arrange images on the page to minimize paper usage.

2.  Click the "Image Fitting" button on the "Prints" panel just below the preview page. Make sure that the button is depressed/on. This tells Qimage that it is ok to crop some of your images in order to obtain exact print sizes.

3.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

4.  Navigate to a folder that contains images using the explorer window.

5.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

6.  Select one or more thumbnails in the thumbnail area using the standard Windows multi-select functions of Ctrl-mouse click or Shift-mouse click.

7.  Click the 6x4 (may also be labelled 4x6) button in the "Prints" group under the preview page.

8.  Click the "Sort Prints" tool button on the top of the window. This will cause Qimage to collate all prints from large to small sizes, using minimal paper and making cutting of prints from the printed page easier.

9.  Click the "Print" tool button.

Example 3: Printing Multiple Images at Different Sizes (in this example, one 7x5, one 5x3 and one 3x2)

1. Click the "Optimal" tool button at the top of the main window. This instructs Qimage to arrange images on the page to minimize paper usage.

2.  Click the "Image Fitting" button on the "Prints" panel just below the preview page. Make sure that the button is depressed/on. This tells Qimage that it is ok to crop some of your images in order to obtain exact print sizes.

3.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

4.  Navigate to a folder that contains images using the explorer window.

5.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

6.  Select a thumbnail that you wish to be printed at a size of 5x7 in the thumbnail area.

7.  Click the 7x5 (may also be labelled 5x7) button in the "Prints" group under the preview page.

8.  Select a thumbnail that you wish to be printed at a size of 3x5 in the thumbnail area.

9.  Click the 5x3 (may also be labelled 3x5) button in the "Prints" group under the preview page.

10.  Select a thumbnail that you wish to be printed at a size of 3x2 in the thumbnail area.

11.  Click the 3x2 (may also be labelled 2x3) button in the "Prints" group under the preview page.

12.  Click the "Sort Prints" tool button on the top of the window. This will cause Qimage to collate all prints from large to small sizes, using minimal paper and making cutting of prints from the printed page easier.

13.  Click the "Print" tool button.

Qimage provides two workflows for adding images of different sizes:

Select thumbs, add size: In the above workflow, we select multiple thumbnails and then click a size button to add the selected thumbs at the size chosen. Note that when you point your mouse cursor at a size button when performing the above steps, Qimage displays a mouse cursor with a "+" symbol to indicate that clicking the size button will result in the selected thumbs being added to the queue. To use this mode of operation, simply make sure that you click a size button immediately after selecting thumbs. If you select thumbs and add those thumbs using a method that uses your current/default size (like double clicking on a thumbnail or selecting thumbs and using the "+" button above the thumbs), you will switch to the workflow below.

Select size, add thumbs: In some cases, it may be desirable to select a default size to work with first, add images to the queue using that size, switch to the next size, add the next batch of images at the new size, etc. Qimage allows this workflow as well. If you select thumbnails and add them by means other than clicking the size buttons, Qimage will realize that you intend to use the current/default size (the last size chosen) and will use the size buttons to set the current/default size only. When operating in this mode, Qimage will display a normal cursor arrow (without the "+" symbol) when you point to the size buttons to indicate that clicking a size simply changes your default for the next batch of thumbs to be added. Clicking a size button in this case will not result in any thumbnails being added to the queue. To use this mode of operation, simply make sure that you use a function other than the size buttons to add images immediately after selection. If you click a print size button immediately after selecting your thumbs, you will switch to the workflow above.

Example 3a: Creating a Single Multi-Purpose Crop that Works for Multiple Print Sizes (in this example, a 5x7, 4x6, and 3.5x5 print)

Notes: When a single image is printed at multiple print sizes with the image fitting option set to crop to exact sizes ( [image] button depressed), Qimage must crop a portion of the image to obtain the exact size chosen unless your image happens to be the exact same dimensions as your selected print size. Qimage will do this automatically by cropping out the largest rectangle possible (in the shape of the selected print size) from the center of your original images. Often this is good enough. If there is very little border around your main subjects (subjects heads are very close to the top edge of the photo for example) or if your subjects are not centered, automatically cropping out the center of the photo may not work as it might cut off part of your subject(s). Most photo printing applications handle this problem by allowing you to slide the image around within individual print sizes to select the proper print area. This can be quite cumbersome, however, because you have to slide the prints around each time you want to print more copies of the photo and you have to slide the photo by a different amount with each individual print size (5x7, 4x6, etc).

Qimage offers a wizard that allows you to design a single crop that is appropriate for all print sizes you expect to use for a particular photo. Once you've designed your crop, that single crop is associated with the image so that whenever a print (of any size) is selected, you will get the image content you expect without "chopping off" important parts of the photo. This method allows us to place a "one time" multi-purpose crop on an image so that cropping never has to be performed on that image from that point forward when making prints.

1.  First, add the image to the queue/page by double clicking its thumbnail or highlighting the thumbnail and clicking a print size button.

2.  Next, double click on the image on the preview page to open that image in the batch filter window.

3.  Next, click the "Crop Wizard" button on the right side of the window.

4.  Check the print sizes that you plan to use when you print this image in the future. In this case, we select the 5x7, 4x6, and 3.5x5 boxes because we know that these are the print sizes we are interested in.

5.  Next, tell the wizard whether a portrait (taller than wide) or landscape (wider than tall) crop is more appropriate for the photo. This decision can be made by looking at the image in the background. Looking at the image displayed behind the Crop Wizard window, does a wide crop include more of your subject(s) or does a tall crop best fit the subject(s)? If a wide crop would better suit the photo (which would be the case with a group photo for example), select landscape. If a portait crop best fits the subject in the frame (which would be the case with a single subject standing upright in the photo), select portrait.

6.  Finally, tell the wizard what edges of the photo are more important (to preserve). For example, looking at the photo in the background, if your subject is right-side-up with his/her head toward the top of the photo, the top/bottom edges are the most important because you don't want the subject's head to be "chopped off" in the photo. In that photo, what appears to the left/right is probably less important. In this case, you would choose top/bottom since that is the part of the photo that must not be cropped off.

7.  Now click the "Use the recommended crop ratio" button.

8.  When you are returned to the batch filter the largest possible crop that suits the conditions defined in the wizard will already be in place. You may move this crop window by sliding the window, resize the crop area to crop a smaller portion of the image by dragging its corners, etc. Qimage will keep the cropped area locked at the appropriate proportions. Make sure that your final crop selection includes all of your subject(s).

9.  After the crop has been placed, click the "Done" button on the lower right side of the window. This will close the batch filter window and return you to the main window of Qimage.

Notes: After performing the above steps, your image is now ready to be printed at the sizes you selected in the Crop Wizard. From this point forward, you need not worry about what size prints you are creating when you print the image. Simply add the image at various sizes (with a process similar to example 3) and Qimage will always ensure that the important parts of your image are not cropped off, while giving you the exact sizes chosen.

Example 3b: Printing Images at their Original (Scanned) Size

Background: Rather than manually selecting print sizes on a per-image basis, it is sometimes desirable to be able to create duplicates of images by printing them at their original size. Such is the case when photos of different sizes are scanned in a flatbed scanner and duplicates of those photos (at the same size as scanned) are desired. The following procedure describes how to accomplish this task.

1. Click the "Optimal" tool button at the top of the main window. This instructs Qimage to arrange images on the page to minimize paper usage.

2.  Click the "Image Fitting" button on the "Prints" panel just below the preview page. Make sure that the button is depressed/on. This tells Qimage that it is ok to crop some of your images in order to obtain exact print sizes.

3.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

4.  Navigate to a folder that contains images using the explorer window.

5.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

6.  Select one or more thumbnails in the thumbnail area using the standard Windows multi-select functions of Ctrl-mouse click or Shift-mouse click.

7.  Click the "Custom" button in the "Prints" group under the preview page.

8.  Click the "Original Size" button. The images will be added at their original (embedded file) size.

9.  Close the "Special Sizes" window.

10.  Click the "Sort Prints" tool button on the top of the window. This will cause Qimage to collate all prints from large to small sizes, using minimal paper and making cutting of prints from the printed page easier.

11.  Click the "Print" tool button.

Notes: Not all images/image types have a PPI listed in the file. When Qimage cannot find the PPI parameter in the image file, it will use the fallback PPI listed on the "Special Sizes" window after completing step 7 above. Note that you can also check the "Override embedded size" checkbox to override the embedded PPI information in image files and force PPI to the value listed in the edit box.

Example 3c: Reviewing Images and Selecting Prints in an Integrated Workflow

1. Click the "Optimal" tool button at the top of the main window. This instructs Qimage to arrange images on the page to minimize paper usage.

2.  Click the "Image Fitting" button on the "Prints" panel just below the preview page. Make sure that the button is depressed/on. This tells Qimage that it is ok to crop some of your images in order to obtain exact print sizes.

3.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

4.  Navigate to a folder that contains images using the explorer window.

5.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

6.  Click the "Select All" button above the thumbnails to select all thumbnails in the current folder.

7.  Click the "Preview Selected" button above the thumbs. The preview window will open with the first selected thumbnail.

8.  You may scroll forward/back through the selected thumbnails using the "Prev" and "Next" buttons on the preview window. When you see an image that you would like to print, simply click the size button of your choice under the "Prints" panel. The print currently being reviewed in the preview window will be added at the size chosen. Repeat for as many images and sizes as you like.

9.  Close the preview window and your document will now contain the selected images at the selected print size(s). When moving forward through the selected thumbnails, you can tell when the end of the list is reached because the "Next" button will be grayed out and will not be operational.

Example 4: Printing Many Copies of One Image (in this example, 9 wallets at 3x2 size)

1. Click the "Optimal" tool button at the top of the main window. This instructs Qimage to arrange images on the page to minimize paper usage.

2.  Click the "Image Fitting" button on the "Prints" panel just below the preview page. Make sure that the button is depressed/on. This tells Qimage that it is ok to crop some of your images in order to obtain exact print sizes.

3.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

4.  Navigate to a folder that contains images using the explorer window.

5.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

6.  Select the thumbnail in question.

7.  In the "Copies" parameter above the thumbnails, enter "9" as the number of copies to be added to the queue.

8.  Click the 3x2 (may also be labelled 2x3) button in the "Prints" group under the preview page.

9.  Click the "Sort Prints" tool button on the top of the window. This will cause Qimage to collate all prints from large to small sizes, using minimal paper and making cutting of prints from the printed page easier.

10.  Click the "Print" tool button.

Example 5: Printing a Specified Number of Prints to Each Page (in this example, dividing the page into 9 prints as large as possible on the page)

1. Click the "Optimal" tool button at the top of the main window. This instructs Qimage to arrange images on the page to minimize paper usage.

2.  Click the "Image Fitting" button on the "Prints" panel just below the preview page. Make sure that the button is depressed/on. This tells Qimage that it is ok to crop some of your images in order to obtain exact print sizes.

3. Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

4.  Navigate to a folder that contains images using the explorer window.

5.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

6.  Select one or more thumbnails in the thumbnail area using the standard Windows multi-select functions of Ctrl-mouse click or Shift-mouse click.

7.  Click the "Custom" button in the "Prints" group under the preview page.

8.  In the group next to the "By Number" button, enter "3" in both the "columns" and "rows" edit boxes and then click the "By Number" button.

9.  Close the "Special Sizes" window.

10. Optional: note that since your "last used" size is remembered, you can double click on other thumbnails to add more thumbnails at the same size without repeating the above until you have as many prints as you like.

11.  Click the "Sort Prints" tool button on the top of the window. This will cause Qimage to collate all prints from large to small sizes, using minimal paper and making cutting of prints from the printed page easier.

12.  Click the "Print" tool button.

Example 6: Printing a Multi Page Poster of a Single Image (in this example, printing a 2 page by 2 page poster for a total of 4 pages)

1.  Click the "Image Fitting" button on the "Prints" panel just below the preview page. Make sure that the button is depressed/on. This tells Qimage that it is ok to crop some of your images in order to obtain exact print sizes. Optional: turn crop off to ensure that the entire image is printed instead.

2.  Make sure that the "Image Lock" button under the preview page is not depressed (unlocked). This tells Qimage that it is ok to automatically rotate your images to obtain the best fit inside the frame size.

3.  Click the "Landscape" tool button to orient the printed page in landscape format.

4.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

5.  Navigate to a folder that contains images using the explorer window.

6.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

7.  Select one or more thumbnails in the thumbnail area using the standard Windows multi-select functions of Ctrl-mouse click or Shift-mouse click.

8.  Click the "Custom" button in the "Prints" group under the preview page.

9.  In the group next to the "Poster" button, enter "2" in both the "pages across" and "pages down" edit boxes and then click the "Poster" button.

10.  Close the "Special Sizes" window.

11.  Click the "Print" tool button.

Example 7: Printing a Contact Sheet of Small Images that Includes the File Name Under Each Print

1.  Click the "Center Placement" tool button at the top of the main window. This instructs Qimage to center images on the page after fitting as many prints as possible on the page.

2.  Click the "Image Fitting" button on the "Prints" panel just below the preview page. Make sure that the button is not depressed/off. This tells Qimage that you would like to print the entire image, adjusting the size if necessary to compensate for the image aspect ratio.

3.  Make sure that the "Image Lock" under the preview page is depressed (locked). This tells Qimage that you would like your images to appear in the original orientation, and not to rotate images unless it would result in more images per page.

4.  Click the "Landscape" tool button to orient the printed page in landscape format.

5.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

6.  Navigate to a folder that contains images using the explorer window.

7.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

8.  Select one or more thumbnails in the thumbnail area using the standard Windows multi-select functions of Ctrl-mouse click or Shift-mouse click.

9.  Click the "Custom" button in the "Prints" group under the preview page.

10.  In the group next to the "Specific Size" button, enter "2" and "1.5" in the size edit boxes respectively and then click the "Specific Size" button.

11.  On the "Print Processing" panel in the lower right, check the box that says " Img. Info" and select "Filename Only" when the dialog appears. This instructs Qimage to print the file name for each image directly under each print.

12.  Click the "Print" tool button.

Example 7a: Printing a Professional Contact Sheet of Small Images that Includes image and EXIF info

1.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

2.  Navigate to a folder that contains images using the explorer window.

3.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

4.  Select one or more thumbnails in the thumbnail area using the standard Windows multi-select functions of Ctrl-mouse click or Shift-mouse click.

5.  Click the "Custom" button in the "Prints" group under the preview page.

6.  Click the "Page Set" button.

7.  Select and open the file: "contact-sheet-25-up". All selected thumbnails will be loaded onto the contact sheet. Note that remaining/unused positions on the page set will not be printed.

8.  Close the "Special Sizes" window.

9.  Click the "Print" tool button.

Example 7b: Printing a Package of Predefined Sizes for all Selected Images (in this case three 4x6 and one 3x2 print)

1.  Click on current size listed above the thumbnails next to "Default for dbl click or drag/drop". The cursor will change to a drag arrow.

2.  Click the "Custom" button in the "Prints" group under the preview page.

3.  Click the "Page Set" button.

4.  Select and open the file: "4x6 (3), 3x2 (1)".

5.  Close the "Special Sizes" window.

6. Templates will appear; note that there are four templates on the preview page.

7. Enter the number "4" in the "Copies" edit box above the thumbnails.

8.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

9.  Navigate to a folder that contains images using the explorer window.

10.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

11.  Select one or more thumbnails in the thumbnail area using the standard Windows multi-select functions of Ctrl-mouse click or Shift-mouse click.

12.  Right click in the thumbnail area and select "Add to Queue". Each selected thumbnail will fill all four templates on each page, resulting in packages of three 4x6 and one 3x2 prints of each selected thumbnail.

13.  Click the "Print" tool button.

Example 8: Printing a Text Annotation Under Prints

1. Create a document that contains images using any of the methods described above. Using "Center Placement" is recommended.

2.  Using the arrows under the page preview on the main window, locate the page that contains the image(s) you want to annotate.

3.  Click the "Edit Page" tool button.

4.  When the page editor opens, right click on the image you would like to annotate.

5. Select "Text Annotation" from the drop down menu.

6. Enter your annotation in the text box provided and click "Ok".

7. Repeat for other prints if you like.

8.  Close the page editor and return to the main window for printing.

Note: you are not limited to the above single line text annotation. When using the page editor, you may also right click on prints and add "Floating Text" using a number of text styles. The text may be placed anywhere on the page, including on top of existing prints. See Floating Text for more info.

Example 9: Creating a Template that Specifies Custom Image Sizes/Locations (in this example, one 4x6 and four 3x2 prints)

1.  Click the "Center Placement" tool button at the top of the main window. This instructs Qimage to center images on the page after fitting as many prints as possible on the page.

2.  Click the "Image Fitting" button on the "Prints" panel just below the preview page. Make sure that the button is depressed/on. This tells Qimage that it is ok to crop some of your images in order to obtain exact print sizes.

3.  Make sure that the "Image Lock" button under the preview page is not depressed (unlocked). This tells Qimage that it is ok to automatically rotate your images to obtain the best fit inside the frame size.

4.  Click the "Portrait" tool button to orient the printed page in portrait format.

5.  Scroll to the bottom of the thumbnails displayed (if any) until you see the last (blank) entry that says "[Template]". Click once to select the [Template] thumbnail.

6.  Click the 6x4 (may also be labelled 4x6) button in the "Prints" group under the preview page.

7.  Click four times on the 3x2 (may also be labelled 2x3) button in the "Prints" group under the preview page.

8.  To customize the size and locations of your 5 templates, click the "Edit Page" tool button. When the page editor opens, simply click and drag the middle of prints to move them and the corners to resize in the usual Windows move/size fashion.

9.  Close the page editor and return to the main window.

10.  Click the "Save Session" tool button (the button with the larger "S" pointing to a floppy). Enter a file name and save the session.

11. You have now saved this custom 5 print template to a file that can be loaded/used later. See the next example to learn how to load/use the template that you created.

To load the custom template in the future: Click "File", "Load Session" and select the filename used in step 11 above.

Note: You can create your own "page sets" using the same steps above. In step 11, if you save your file with a "tpl" extension, it will show up as a "Page Set" when you click the "Custom" size button. This is a simple way to create your own page sets to be used as print packages.

Example 10: Printing Using Custom Templates Created in Example 9

1.  Click the "Load Session" tool button (the button with the floppy pointing to a larger "S").

2.  Select the file name that you used in example 9 when you created/saved the custom template. Click "Open" or double click on the file name and the Custom Template session will appear as it did when you created it.

3.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

4.  Navigate to a folder that contains images using the explorer window.

5.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

6.  Click on a thumbnail and drag that thumbnail, dropping it onto one of the red template rectangles on the preview page. The image will be placed into that template. Repeat this with other thumbnails, dropping them onto the red templates. Note, not all red templates must be filled.

7.  Click the "Print" tool button.

Note: If you saved your created template with a "tpl" file extension in step 11 of Example 9 above, that set of templates will be available via the "Page Sets" button. Simply click the "Custom" button and then select "Page Set". You can then double click on thumbnails to add them to the page set and new pages will be created automatically as you double click on thumbnails.

Example 11: Moving the Crop Area when "Crop Image" is Turned On (instead of accepting Qimage's default of cropping out the center of an image when fitting)

1.  Add images to the queue using any of the above methods and with the "Image Fitting" button set so that crop is on (button depressed).

2.  Locate an image on the preview page for which you would like to redefine the crop area, and double click on that image on the preview page.

3.  The batch filter window will open automatically.

4.  The image will be displayed along with the default crop area. Simply click inside this crop area and drag it to a new location. If you would like to redefine the crop entirely, click outside the crop rectangle first, and then redefine your crop area by clicking and draggin a new rectangle. Qimage will ensure that the crop rectangle is the same aspect ratio as the size selected, however, you can drag further left/right then up/down or vice versa to change the orientation of the crop rectangle.

5.  When finished, close the batch filter window.

6.  Answer "Yes" to indicate that you would like to apply the filter on your way out.

7.  Click "Ok" so that Qimage will associate your crop with the image. Note that the crop association will remain in effect until you delete/remove the associative filter!

Example 12: Downsizing Images for Web/Email

1.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

2.  Navigate to a folder that contains images using the explorer window.

3.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

4.  Double click on thumbnails one at a time to add to the queue, or multi-select thumbnails and then right click in the thumbnail area and select "Add to Queue".

5.  Click the "Create email/web size copies" button on the top of the window.

6.  The default resize it a 640x480 resize. If you would like a different resolution, simply enter the resolution or click the appropriate resolution button.

7.  Click the "Go!" button. Progress will be displayed at the bottom of the window. Click "Cancel" once to stop processing if you need to abort the procedure.

8. When processing is complete, you will be returned to the main window. The downsized versions of your images will be in the same folder(s) as the original(s), but will have a {Q-E} prefix on the file names. For example, if pic0001.jpg, pic0002.jpg and pic0003.jpg are in the queue and you told Qimage to downsize all images in the queue, you will now have images named {Q-E}pic0001.jpg, {Q-E}pic0002.jpg, and {Q-E}pic0003.jpg. These {Q-E} prefix images are your email/web copies.

Note: Email/web copies are always saved in JPEG format with a quality of 80. If the aspect ratio of the images does not match that of the selected size, the image will be fitted into the given size such that the entire image is visible. When making email/web copies of images that are different aspect ratios or are in a different orientation, Qimage will match one side and calculate the other.

Example 13: Converting Nikon D1 NEF Images to TIF

1.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

2.  Navigate to a folder that contains NEF images using the explorer window.

3.  When you find the folder that contains your NEF images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

4.  Double click on thumbnails one at a time to add to the queue, or multi-select thumbnails and then right click in the thumbnail area and select "Add to Queue".

5.  Right click in the queue area and select "Convert Images" or click the "Convert Images" button on the top of the window.

6.  Click the radio button next to "TIF (lossless)".

7.  Check the box that says "Perform a Profile to Profile (ICM) Conversion". If you do not perform a profile conversion, converted images will look very dark since the resulting images will be in raw/linear format.

8.  Click the selection button next to the "From" profile and select the file "d1-nef.icm" from the folder where you have Qimage installed (normally \program files\qimage).

9.  Click the selection button next to the "To" profile and select the working space of your choice (sRGB for web, Adobe for editing, etc). These working spaces are also located in the folder where you have Qimage installed (normally \program files\qimage).

10.  Click "Ok" and Qimage will convert all the images in the queue. The converted images will be in the same folder(s) as the original NEF's, but will have a {Q} prefix on the file names. For example, if pic0001.nef, pic0002.nef and pic0003.nef are in the queue and you told Qimage to convert all images in the queue, you will now have images named {Q}pic0001.tif, {Q}pic0002.tif, and {Q}pic0003.tif.

Example 14: Viewing and Printing Nikon D1 NEF images

Qimage does not treat Nikon D1 NEF images any different than other image formats. It is important to remember that you MUST have monitor and printer profiling turned on in Qimage to be able to view/print D1 NEF images accurately. If you have your monitor ICC turned off (look in the "Print Processing" panel on the lower right of the main window), D1 NEF images will appear very dark and/or undersaturated. This is because without identifying a profile for your monitor, you will be looking at the raw/linear image on screen because although Qimage knows how the input image is profiled, you have not told it what to profile to, namely your monitor and/or printer. If you have no monitor profile, simply select the sRGB.icm profile from your "Qimage" folder and use that for your monitor ICC. sRGB should be close enough for most monitors and for web display. Since D1 NEF images are in a color space that is very different from monitors and printers, simply entering the sRGB profile for your monitor will brighten images and bring them to life. If you do not identify a printer ICC profile for your printer, you will get similar dark/inaccurate prints. Again, if you have no profile for your printer, simply entering the sRGB.icm profile for your printer ICC will get you in the ball park, but you really should have a specific printer profile to ensure accurate color in prints. Again, Qimage knows how the input image is profiled (because it knows the ICC profile for a Nikon D1 NEF), but if you don't specify an output profile for your monitor and printer, the software has no basis for translating the image data from NEF color space into the color space used by your monitor/printer.

Section II: Making Changes

Example 15: Changing the Size of Existing Prints (in this example, changing a 6x4 print to a 3x2 print)

1. Let's assume that you have followed Example 2 and have a number of 4x6 prints appearing on the preview page in the upper right of the main window.

2.  First, select the print that you would like to resize by left clicking on a print on the preview page (upper right of main window).

3.  Click four times on the 3x2 (may also be labelled 2x3) button in the "Prints" group under the preview page. The size of the print will change to 3x2.

Example 16: Changing the "Image Fitting" of Existing Prints (in this example, turning off "Crop Image" on a 6x4 print)

1. Let's assume that you have followed Example 2 and have a number of 4x6 prints appearing on the preview page in the upper right of the main window. If you followed the example, you should have 4x6 prints on the page. Unless you selected images that are a 6:4 aspect ratio, part of the images will be cropped to achieve the 4x6 size. In this example, we will remove the cropping and force Qimage to print the entire image instead.

2.  Select the print that you would like to "uncrop" by left clicking on a print on the preview page (upper right of main window).

3.  The image fitting button under the preview page should be in the down position indicating that the selected print has auto-crop turned on.

4.  Click the image fitting button and the auto-crop will be released on the selected print.

5. IMPORTANT: If the above steps succeed in removing the crop and refitting the image, STOP now. If you performed the above steps and Qimage still shows a cropped image or you notice that the size did not change by the refitting, you may have placed an associative crop on the image as outlined in example 11. If so, there is still a crop "filter" on the image itself that needs to be removed. If this is the case, proceed to the next step.

6.  To remove a crop that has been placed on the image via an associative image filter, start by right clicking on the print on the preview page again to bring up the drop down list of functions.

7.  Select "Delete Filter(s).

8.  Check the "Crop" checkbox, indicating your desire to delete the crop from the image.

9.  Click the "Remove Selected" button. The associative crop will be removed and the entire image restored.

Example 17: Rotating Existing Prints on the Page

1.  To toggle a print from landscape to portrait mode or vice versa, first select the print by left clicking on a print on the preview page.

2.  The current orientation of the selected print will be shown in the "Prints" group. Simply click the desired orientation to change.

3. The print will switch orientations by rotating 90 degrees. Note that if the print size was square (same horizontal and vertical print size), this option will have no effect.

Example 17a: Rotating Images so that the Thumbnails/Images Always Appear Upright When Displayed on Screen

1.  Select one or more thumbnails in the thumbnail area using the standard Windows multi-select functions of Ctrl-mouse click or Shift-mouse click. Multi-select all the thumbnails that need to be rotated in the same direction.

2.  Right click in the thumbnail area and select "Apply Predefined Filter".

3.  Select and open "Rotate 90 Clockwise", "Rotate 90 Counterclockwise" or "Rotate 180" as appropriate. The images will be rotated by the specified amount.

Note: applying a filter using "Apply Predefined Filter" always adds to whatever filters already exist. For this reason, if you perform the above steps and select the "Rotate 90 Clockwise" filter and then repeat the steps, selecting the "Black and White" filter, you will have thumbnails that are both rotated 90 degrees clockwise and are now black and white. Also note, however, that since different "types" of filters can be added, using the same filter more than once will have no effect because it will overwrite any existing value for that filter. For example, "Black and White" and "Brighten" can be used in combination but selecting "Brighten" twice will not result in twice the brightening because you are using the same filter twice.

Section III: Working with ICC Profiles

Example 18: Using ICC Profiles with Original Images from a Digital Camera (in this example, a Nikon CP990)

1. Let's assume that you have acquired an ICC profile for your particular camera model and want to "connect" that ICC profile in Qimage so that you get the most accurate color to view/print.

2.  First, select "Settings", "Color Management" from the top menu of the main window. The color management window will open.

3.  Initially, the table of input devices at the top only lists an entry/row for <unknown device>. This is a "fallback" line that must always exist in the table. Since we want to add a new row to the table, click the "Insert" button first.

4.  Left click anywhere in the new/blank row that was inserted into the table to activate that row.

5.  Click "Select ICM Profile" and browse to and select the profile for your camera. If you purchased the CP990 profile from the Qimage ICC Profile page and followed the instructions for saving the profile for example, you would select the file \windows\system\color\cp990.icm. Once selected, you will notice that the path and filename were filled in under "ICM Profile" in the table.

6.  Next, click "Extract EXIF Model Name" and browse to and select an *original* image from your camera (in our example, the CP990). Since this function extracts the camera name from an image file, the image file you choose *must* be an unmodified original JPG or TIF downloaded from the camera's memory card. If you select a modified image, the EXIF information may have been stripped from the modified image and may no longer exist. Once you select an original image, Qimage will extract the EXIF model name for the camera and will place that name in the column labeled "EXIF Model" in the table (in this case, the value will be "E990").

7.  Make sure that there is a "Y" in the right column of the table indicating that the new row is enabled, and then click "Ok" to save the information in the table and close the window.

8. You have now successfully associated your camera profile with original images from your camera. From this point forward, whenever Qimage opens an *original* image from the CP990 camera, it will know which ICC profile to use. Note that if the EXIF information is not present, Qimage will fall back to the profile selected under <unknown device>. For a method of identifying which profile to use when your images do not contain the original EXIF tags, see example 19 below.

9. Repeating the above process for different camera models allows Qimage to "auto assign" the correct profiles to different camera models automatically so that you do not have to "worry" about selecting which profile goes with which camera.

Example 19: Using ICC Profiles with Modified Images from a Digital Camera (in this example, a Nikon CP990)

1. In this case, since we are dealing with modified images, the EXIF information that contains the camera model may no longer be present. If the EXIF model name is not embedded in your image files, the method used to assign a camera profile in example 18 will not work. Qimage does, however, provide another method of assigning profiles to images. We can associate a profile to an image based on image resolution.

2.  First, select "Settings", "Color Management" from the top menu of the main window. The color management window will open.

3.  Initially, the list of input devices at the top only lists an entry for <unknown device>. This is a "fallback" line that must always exist on the list. Since we want to add a new row to the table, click the "Insert" button first. If you performed example 18 above, there will be two lines in the table: one for <unknown device> and one for "E990". You should leave the "E990" line in the table. Don't delete or disable it because you still want Qimage to recognize your camera's originals.

4.  Left click anywhere in the new/blank row that was inserted into the table to activate that row.

5.  Click "Select ICM Profile" and browse to and select the profile for your camera. If you purchased the CP990 profile from the Qimage ICC Profile page and followed the instructions for saving the profile for example, you would select the file \windows\system\color\cp990.icm. Once selected, you will notice that the path and filename were filled in under "ICM Profile" in the table.

6.  Click in the "X Res." column and enter 2048.

7.  Click in the "Y Res." column and enter 1536.

8. Note: leave the "EXIF Model" column blank.

9.  Make sure that there is a "Y" in the right column of the table indicating that the new row is enabled, and then click "Ok" to save the information in the table and close the window.

10. The above steps will cause Qimage to use the "cp990.icm" profile on every image that is 2048 x 1536 resolution. Obviously, this method will only work on uncropped images since it is based on the resolution of a full size Nikon CP990 image. Also, if you have another camera (or other images from another digital camera) that are exactly the same resolution (for example, the Olympus C3030Z), Qimage will place the Nikon 990 profile on those images as well because they are the same resolution.

11. What if you don't know the resolution of images from your camera? Simply go back to the main window and hold the mouse pointer over an image from that camera and watch the status bar at the very bottom of the window. The resolution will be displayed there.

Final note: As an alternative to using Qimage's input table to associate ICC profiles with image types/resolutions, you can also embed the proper profile into TIFF images saved by Qimage up front. By embedding the ICC profile into the TIFF itself, you can specify exactly what profile is to be used with that image in the future, thus eliminating the need for Qimage to look in it's input table. See Example 26 for more details.

Example 20: Identifying Which Monitor and Printer Profile to Use

1. After performing the steps in examples 18 and/or 19, you may notice that there is no visible difference in your images on screen/in print. This may be because you have not yet identified a profile for your monitor. If you performed the steps in example 18 and/or 19 and have not yet activated a profile for your monitor and printer, it is not possible for Qimage to know how to profile images. Although examples 18/19 have shown Qimage how to identify the color space for your camera, if it does not know what profiles to use for your monitor and printer, there is no way to "convert" the color space from one device to another. A simple analogy would be telling someone, "Go north on Route 95 until you get there" without telling the person where "there" is. Knowing that we cannot profile from a known space to "nothing", we need to take the following steps to identify what color space our devices use.

2.  First, select "Settings", "Color Management" from the top menu of the main window. The color management window will open.

3.  Check the box that says "Enabled" under the "Monitor" group.

4.  Click the selection button in the "Monitor" group. If you have a specific profile that describes your specific brand/model monitor, browse to and select that profile (ICM file). On most systems, these profiles are stored in the \windows\system\color folder. If you do not have a specific profile, browse to the folder where Qimage is installed (normally \program files\qimage) and select "sRGB.icm". sRGB should be good enough for most generic monitors.

5.  Next, check the box that says "Enabled" under the "Printer" group.

6.  Click the selection button in the "Printer" group. If you have a specific profile that describes your specific brand/model printer and the paper/media you are using (perhaps you created one yourself with a profiling tool), browse to and select that profile (ICM file). If you do not have a specific profile, browse to the folder where Qimage is installed (normally \program files\qimage) and select "sRGB.icm". IMPORTANT: the sRGB profile was NOT designed for printers and results of using sRGB color space on a printer may vary depending on whether or not the printer is designed to accept sRGB data by default, etc. For this reason, selecting sRGB as the color space used for your printer is not "industry" practice nor is it recommended. It may, however, be better than not using a printer profile at all, in which case the raw data from your camera will simply be "dumped" to the printer. For truly accurate color, we recommend obtaining a specific profile for your printer/media/ink combination or developing a profile yourself using a custom profiling tool.

7.  Click "Ok" to close the color management window and return to the main window.

8. If you followed examples 18 through 20, you have now activated color management in Qimage and your images will automatically be profiled for view/print.

Example 21: Verifying that the Proper ICC Profile is Being Used for your Camera

1. In examples 18 through 20, we have given Qimage a method of specifying how color data is described in images saved by your camera, and how to "translate" that data to the specifications of your monitor and printer. To run a simple test to verify that the correct profile(s) are getting selected for the correct camera(s), perform the following steps.

2. First, visually inspect the lower right panel on the main window (Print Processing) and make sure that there is a "Printer ICC" identified. A profile name should appear and NOT the word "OFF".

3.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

4.  Navigate to a folder that contains some original images from the camera that you entered into the input profile table in example 18.

5.  When you find the folder, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

6.  Double click on a thumbnail. The image will be added to the queue and one line will appear in the queue.

7. If your association in example 18 and/or 19 is functioning properly, the profile for that camera should appear at the end (right side) of the line in the queue. To continue with example 18 and the Nikon CP990 camera, you should see "cp990.icm" listed on the very right of the line in the queue.

Example 22: Using a Camera Profile to Profile Images for the Web

1. In examples 18 through 21, we have been concerned with how produce accurate color within the Qimage application. Although the above will ensure that Qimage always produces accurate displays/prints, we may need to profile originals from our camera so that other programs display them properly or so that they appear on the web with accurate color using generic browsers/monitors. If you make changes to, or filter images in Qimage, resaving the filtered images as new images using a process similar to example 12, the newly created/filtered images are not automatically profiled. That is, your camera profile is not used. This is because by simply creating modified images, we have not yet identified what medium they will be viewed or printed on. To use a camera profile to profile your images for web display, follow these steps.

2.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

3.  Navigate to a folder that contains images that you would like to profile.

4.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

5.  Double click on thumbnails one at a time to add to the queue, or multi-select thumbnails and then right click in the thumbnail area and select "Add to Queue".

6.  Right click in the queue area and select "Convert Images".

7.  Leave the "JPG" radio button selected.

8.  Check the box that says "Perform a Profile to Profile (ICM) Conversion".

9.  Click the selection button next to the "From" profile and select the profile for your camera. In the CP990 example from above, that would be "cp990.icm".

10.  Click the selection button next to the "To" profile and select sRGB.icm. The sRGB space is located in the folder where you have Qimage installed (normally \program files\qimage).

11.  Click "Ok" and Qimage will convert all the images in the queue. The converted images will be in the same folder(s) as the originals, but will have a {Q} prefix on the file names. For example, if pic0001.jpg, pic0002.jpg and pic0003.jpg are in the queue and you told Qimage to convert all images in the queue, you will now have images named {Q}pic0001.jpg, {Q}pic0002.jpg, and {Q}pic0003.jpg.

12. Note that you can downsize images for the web (example 12), and profile them at the same time! To do this, simply follow the above example and between steps 6 and 7, check the radio button for "Add to/replace existing filters". When the filter dialog appears, enter "640" in the width under "Resolution" at the bottom of the filter window and click "Done". This operation will insert a 640 resize filter into the above process so that resulting images are downsized and profiled accordingly. Note that if you are working with images with different resolutions, Qimage performs a relative downsizing (downsizing all images by the same percentage), unlike the absolute resizing in example 12. As a result, the final resolution using this resizing method may vary depending on the resolution of the originals.

Example 23: How to Avoid "Double Profiling"

Using examples 19 and 22 together has the potential of creating a condition that causes double profiling which can actually apply a profile twice, making images have inaccurate color. How? If you have an entry in your input profile table that tells Qimage to profile all 2048 x 1536 images (per example 19), it will attempt to "attach" that profile to all 2048 x 1536 images. In example 22 above, we profiled an image from your camera's color space to sRGB. If you take the reprofiled (sRGB) image created in example 22 ({Q}pic0001.jpg for example) and try to print that image, Qimage will still try to use the "cp990.icm" profile from our example because the reprofiled image is still 2048 x 1536 resolution. To avoid these situations, you must remember to disable the "2048 x 1536" line in your input profile table under "Settings", "Color Management" before printing reprofiled images. To make things simpler, it may be best to have a separate folder for your "reprofiled" images so that you'll know that these images have already been reprofiled once. Note that since it is not desirable to profile an image multiple times as this can degrade color accuracy, if you plan to view/print images from Qimage, it is best to not convert images from their original color space; rather, leave them in their "native" color space so that Qimage must only perform one profile conversion at view/print time.

Can you print that {Q}pic0001.jpg image even though it has already been "converted" from cp990.icm to sRGB.icm? Sure. You may not want to though because multiple ICC conversions can cause degradation in color accuracy. How do you do it? Just disable that 2048 x 1536 line in your input profile table and make sure that your fallback line at the top of the table (the <unknown device> entry) points to the sRGB profile. That way, Qimage won't be able to find a specific profile for the image and will fall back to sRGB, which is what you used for the reprofiling in example 22.

Example 24: Creating a Scrapbook Page

1. After deciding on which images to print and their approximate sizes, follow an example such as Example 3 to add the images to the document with one IMPORTANT exception: when following example 3, you should make sure that the "Image Fitting" button in step 2 is off instead of on (button up/not depressed). Auto cropping of prints can interfere with the print rotation in step 6 below. When finished, each page should contain the images that you would like to be printed on that page.

2.  Using the preview page on the main window, go to a page that you would like to arrange and double click on one of the prints to bring that print into the batch filter. Let's assume you clicked on a print that you would like on the upper left corner of the page.

3.  Click the "Cutout" button located under "Image Effects" in the filter parameters on the right.

4.  Click the small picture icon at the top of the cutout preview window. This will refresh all the cutout thumbnails.

5.  Double click on a cutout icon such as "Ripples". You will be returned to the batch filter with the cutout previewed on screen.

6.  In the "Rotate" parameter just above the "Cutout" button, enter a rotation of -45. This will rotate the print 45 degrees counterclockwise on the page (the rotation cannot be previewed in the batch filter).

7.  Click the "Done" button on the far right side of the window. This tells Qimage that you are done editing the filter and you would like to save it and close the filter window. Note that you have placed an associative filter on the original image. As a result, any time this image is viewed, printed, or added to a page, it will have the same appearance (rotated counterclockwise with the "Ripples" cutout to produce rippled edges). Removing the filter and reverting to the original is simple, however: select the print on the page or the thumbnail in the thumbnails window and right click, selecting "Delete Associative Filter(s)".

8.  Click "Ok" to associate the filter with the original image.

9. You will now be returned to the main window and the preview page will update. You can repeat steps 2 through 8 until all your prints have the desired cutouts and rotation applied. To customize your page by relocating or moving/resizing prints on the page, see example 25 below.

Note: See the help on Floating Text to learn how to add text anywhere on the page.

Example 25: Visual/Manual Placement and Sizing of Images

1.  Using the preview page on the main window, locate a page that you would like to rearrange.

2.  Click the "Edit Page" tool button to open the full page editor.

3.  Simply click in the center of any print and drag that print to the new location on the page.

4.  If your document placement was set to anything other than "Freehand" placement mode, you will be prompted and asked if you are sure that you want to change image placement to "Freehand" mode. Answer "Yes" to this question. IMPORTANT: from this point forward, Qimage will be set to "Freehand" placement mode. If you would like to add more images to the printed page, you must be careful to drag and drop thumbnails, dropping them at the desired manual position on the preview page, otherwise the images will be added to the page in the upper left corner.

5. Repeat step 3 (step 4 will not appear again) until all the images are in the desired locations.

6.  To change the size of prints visually, simply click in any corner and drag that corner to resize in the typical Windows sizing fashion.

Example 25a: Preparing Pages of Prints to be Sent to an [Online] Printing Service

Notes: in addition to using Qimage to create professional quality prints directly to your local or network printer(s), Qimage can also be used to prepare print "jobs" for external printing services. You can easily prepare multiple pages of prints for a printing service using the same built in professional quality print algorithms. The job is prepared via saving pages as image files. The workflow for accomplishing this task is outlined in the steps below.

1.  From the main Qimage window, click "File", "Print To" and select "File". This tells Qimage that you intend to prepare a job for printing by another service.

2.  The "Print to File: Page Definition" dialog will appear, which will allow you to specify the size and resolution of each printed page. Enter the appropriate values and click "OK" to accept. You may update this page definition at any time by clicking "File", "Page/Printer Setup". The values that you should use here depend on the type of equipment being used by the printing service. A quick call or email to the printing service where you intend to send your images should be all that is needed here. For example, many online printing services request that image files be 8x10 at 300 PPI resolution (this equates to image files that have a resolution of 3000 x 2400).

3. Use Qimage as you normally would, adding and arranging prints.

4.  When you are ready to print, simply click the print button on the top/right of the main window.

5.  The "Print to File" dialog will appear. Here, you can specify the range of pages to print and the JPEG quality to use (if you save your files as JPEG files). When you have specified the range of pages to print, click OK.

6.  The save dialog appears, asking for a file name to use when saving each page. Select the folder and file name for the output and click OK. If multiple pages are being printed, multiple files will be created with a numeric suffix such as MyPageName(0001), MyPageName(0002), etc.

Final note: Note that printing to file(s) is no different than printing to a printer. The only difference is that when you print to a file, you are "rerouting" the output to be stored in files instead of sending the images to the printer. As such, all printing options are still valid and may still be used when printing to files: print interpolation levels and interpolation type, smart sharpening, and "Printer ICC" profile. If you have a "Printer ICC" active on the bottom right of the main window, be aware that all images (of your pages) will be saved in that color space. Some online printing services specify the color space they would like to be used for your images (sRGB, Adobe, etc.). When in doubt, ask your printing service what color space they "assume" for images so that you can match that in your "Printer ICC" for the most accurate color.

Example 26: How to Create TIFF images with your Camera's ICC Profile Embedded

Notes: Since ICC profiles are available for some cameras and in general, cameras do not embed profiles in original images, it can be beneficial to create copies of images that have the proper ICC profile embedded. If we take an original JPEG from a camera for example, and create a TIFF copy of that with the proper ICC profile embedded in the TIFF, other photo editors and ICC aware applications can open this TIFF with accurate color rendition. In addition, Qimage will recognize this embedded profile when the TIFF image is opened in the future. To do this, we take original JPEG/TIFF images from the camera and use Qimage to create TIFF images that have the proper ICC profile embedded in them. Note that this does not change the image data itself! We are just tagging the created TIFF images with the ICC profile, which is a description of how to interpret the RGB data in the TIFF file.

1.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

2.  Navigate to a folder that contains images that you would like to profile (original JPEG or TIFF images from your camera).

3.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

4.  Double click on thumbnails one at a time to add to the queue, or multi-select thumbnails and then right click in the thumbnail area and select "Add to Queue".

5.  Right click in the queue area and select "Convert Images".

6.  Check the "TIF" radio button so that new images will be created in TIF format.

7.  Check the box that says "Perform a Profile to Profile (ICM) Conversion".

8.  Click the selection button next to the "From" profile and select the profile for your camera. In the CP990 example from above, that would be "cp990.icm".

9.  Click the selection button next to the "To" profile and select the same profile as in step 8. By selecting the same (camera) profile in both the "From" and "To" profile, we are telling Qimage that a profile to profile conversion is not necessary, but we'd like the created images to have the listed profile embedded.

10.  Click "Ok" and Qimage will convert all the images in the queue. The converted images will be in the same folder(s) as the originals, but will have a {Q} prefix on the file names. For example, if pic0001.jpg, pic0002.jpg and pic0003.jpg are in the queue and you told Qimage to convert all images in the queue, you will now have images named {Q}pic0001.tif, {Q}pic0002.tif, and {Q}pic0003.tif.

Final note: Although the current version of Qimage can read and use embedded profiles from both JPEG and TIFF format images, it only supports writing embedded profiles into TIFF format images at this time. If you save your created/converted images in any other image format (including JPEG), they will not have an embedded ICC profile.

Also: In step 9, you can also use a generic working space such as Adobe RGB, sRGB, Color Match, etc. and the TIFF images will be saved in that color space. This can be useful if your photo editor will not allow you to work in the image's "native" color space without converting to a generic working space. Note that if your photo editor allows it, however, it is always best to use the "native" color space (profile) that is embedded in your image for editing. Color space conversions require that RGB data be converted, and these conversions can often result in loss of color gamut, bit depth, etc. In other words, converting from one color space to another is not a lossless process.

Example 27: How to Create ICC Embedded, Linear 16 bit TIFF images from RAW files

Notes: The following example shows how to create a linear (gamma 1.0) 16 bit TIFF from your raw images (NEF/ORF). The TIFF images created in this process will contain the linear/raw data from your camera, but will contain an ICC profile that describes how this data should appear in your photo editor. This will allow your ICC aware photo editor to open the TIFF using the raw data from your NEF/ORF images. Since the embedded profile contains all the information necessary about how to decode the raw data, this allows you to work in your camera's native/raw color space without converting to a generic (non-linear) space! Note that some photo editors will force you to convert the linear data to a generic working space, but some newer photo editors will allow you to work directly in the native raw space, eliminating the need to perform color space conversions and reducing error associated with gamut clipping when converting from a raw color space (generally very large gamut) to the smaller gamut working spaces.

1.  Click "Settings", "RAW Format Options" from the top menu bar on the Qimage main window.

2.  Click the radio buttons for "Use linear/raw space" and also "16 bits/channel (48 bit)".

3.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

4.  Navigate to a folder that contains raw images.

5.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

6.  Double click on thumbnails one at a time to add to the queue, or multi-select thumbnails and then right click in the thumbnail area and select "Add to Queue".

7.  Right click in the queue area and select "Convert Images".

8.  Check the "TIF" radio button so that new images will be created in TIF format.

9.  Check the box that says "Perform a Profile to Profile (ICM) Conversion".

10.  Click the selection button next to the "From" profile and select the appropriate ICM file from your Qimage folder (normally \program files\qimage). For example, if you are using a D1x, select the "d1x-nef.icm" profile. If you are using an E-10, select "e10-orf.icm", etc.

11.  Click the selection button next to the "To" profile and select the same profile as in step 8. By selecting the same (camera) profile in both the "From" and "To" profile, we are telling Qimage that a profile to profile conversion is not necessary, but we'd like the created images to have the listed profile embedded.

12.  Click "Ok" and Qimage will convert all the images in the queue. The converted images will be in the same folder(s) as the originals, but will have a {Q} prefix on the file names. For example, if DSC0001.NEF, DSC0002.NEF and DSC0003.NEF are in the queue and you told Qimage to convert all images in the queue, you will now have images named {Q}DSC0001.tif, {Q}DSC0002.tif, and {Q}DSC0003.tif.

Final note: Although the current version of Qimage can read and use embedded profiles from both JPEG and TIFF format images, it only supports writing embedded profiles into TIFF format images at this time. If you save your created/converted images in any other image format (including JPEG), they will not have an embedded ICC profile.

Also: In step 9, you can also use a generic working space such as Adobe RGB, sRGB, Color Match, etc. and the TIFF images will be saved in that color space. This can be useful if your photo editor will not allow you to work in the image's "native" color space without converting to a generic working space. Note that if your photo editor allows it, however, it is always best to use the "native" color space (profile) that is embedded in your image for editing. Color space conversions require that RGB data be converted, and these conversions can often result in loss of color gamut, bit depth, etc. In other words, converting from one color space to another is not a lossless process.

Example 28: How to Associate ICC Profiles with Individual Images Using the Batch Filter

Notes: There may be times when you would like to simply "tag" particular images with an ICC profile without embedding the actual profile into the images. You can associate an ICC profile with image(s) by setting the "ICC" parameter in the batch filter. Associating an ICC profile with an image using the batch filter will override all other methods of identifying an ICC profile for that image (including the embedded profile if the image has one). Note that since this method simply associates an ICC profile to images via an associative filter, it will also allow you to associate ICC profiles with file types that do not allow embedded profiles (such as BMP, TGA, and even GIF). The following example shows how to use Qimage's batch filter to associate an ICC profile with image(s).

1.  Click the "Select Folder" button above and to the left of the thumbnails. This will open a folder explorer window.

2.  Navigate to a folder that contains images using the explorer window.

3.  When you find the folder that contains your images, close the explorer window that shows the folders.

4.  Double click on thumbnails one at a time to add to the queue, or multi-select thumbnails and then right click in the thumbnail area and select "Add to Queue".

5.  Now that you have added the images to the queue that you want to associate with a particular ICC profile, click the "Batch Filter" tool button to activate the batch filter window.

6.  Locate the "ICC" association in the "Auto Correct" group on the right side of the window and click the "Open" button to the right of this entry to locate/open a profile.

7.  Browse through the folders on your system that contain ICC profiles and select a profile by double clicking on the profile name.

8.  Close the batch filter window.

9.  Answer "Yes" to indicate that you would like to apply the filter on your way out.

10.  At the top of the next dialog, under "Scope", tell Qimage whether you want to associate this ICC profile with the image you were just editing, or ALL images that you placed in the queue.

11.  Click "Ok" and Qimage will associate the ICC profile with the image(s).

Final note: Please note that the profile selected in step 7 above must be available to Qimage whenever viewing/printing/converting images. If the selected ICC profile is later deleted or the filter is used on another system that does not have the same profile located in the same folder, Qimage will not be able to perform the association because the ICC profile specified in the filter is missing. If this happens, the association is ignored. Also note that once the above association is made, all ICC profiling operations/rules in Qimage still apply. Associating a profile with an image only specifies how color for that image should be interpreted. If you have your monitor ICC turned off, do not expect to be able to evaluate the association on screen because no monitor profile has been specified and therefore no "to" profile exists (only the "from" profile). Similarly, if your printer ICC is turned off, the image ICC profile association will make no difference in prints since you must specify a printer profile to be able to profile "from" the image profile "to" the printer profile. Finally, when saving/converting images that have associated profiles, you must specify a "to" profile on the filter application menu and check "Perform Profile to Profile Conversion". For example, if you have 10 images in the queue, each with a [potentially] different ICC profile associated, and you would like to convert all of these images from their associated profiles to sRGB for display on the web, perform the following steps:

1.  Since you've already added the filtered (ICC profile associated) images to the queue, simply right click in the queue and select "Convert Images".

2.  Check "Perform Profile to Profile Conversion".

3. On the top "From" profile line, delete any text in that field. The word <input> will appear. Leave this text intact. This tells Qimage to "look up" and use whatever profile is associated with each individual image.

4.  Click the selection button next to the "To" profile and select the sRGB.icm profile from your Qimage installation folder (normally \program files\qimage).

5.  Click "Ok" and Qimage will create sRGB profiled copies of all images in the queue.

This help file was generated from HTML source using WebTwin version 1.1b


Qimage Functions

Qimage Functions

Add to Queue
Auto Preview (in the batch filter window)
Auto Rename
Batch Filters (to enhance/crop images)
Blemish/pixel corrector
Borders around prints
Context Sensitive Help
CCD Noise Filters (dark current, shadow noise, and high ISO filters)
Color Management (ICC support)
Comparator
Cropping Images (to fill print size exactly)
Curves Filter
Cutouts (framing images)
Dark Frame Subtraction
Defaults (for print size and fit)
Delete Filters
Editor Functions
EXIF Hotbar
EXIF info (view image info)
Exposure compensation
File Dropdown Menu
Filters (managing associated filters)
Flash Card Copy/Move
Floating Text
Folder History
Freehand - manually placing images on the page
Fringing Filter (purple/green fringing)
Full screen view
Global Filter
Image Fitting
Image Lock
Image Placement
Info Stamp
Interface (filenames versus thumbnails)
Levels Filter
Lossless JPEG Transforms
Margins
Mark Edges (of all prints)
Mirror
Optimizing layouts for certain size prints (4x6, etc).
Page Editor - defined
Page Orientation (portrait/landscape)
Page Preview
Page/Paper Size (changing)
Photo Editors (using with Qimage)
Plugins
Preview (while adding images to queue)
Print Image Information (under each print when printing)
Print Interpolation and Spooling Options
Print To (printer or file)
Printer Font
Printer Setup
RAW Format Options
Red Eye Correction
Reordering Prints
Scrapbooks
Selected Thumbs/Files (Copy, Move, Rename, Auto Rename, Delete, Recycle)
Slide Show (to view images in the queue full screen)
Sort Prints
Templates (creating manual templates and retaining image positions)
Thumbnail font
Thumbnail Cache - Managing Disk Space
Units (of measure)
Unsharp Mask
Utilities (file manager, Flash card copy/move)
White Balance Filter

This help file was generated from HTML source using WebTwin version 1.1b


Qimage Shortcuts

Qimage Shortcuts

Qimage has a large number of shortcuts designed to give super fast access to critical functions. The following is a list of some of of those functions:

The Main Window

Thumbnail Shortcuts: To access these shortcuts, simply place the mouse cursor over a thumbnail and press:

Applies to thumbnail under mouse cursor (thumb need not be selected/highlighted):

u Spacebar: View the image full screen.

u Ctrl-Z: View the image in the image examiner (zoom in/out/pan/etc).

u Ctrl-I: View the EXIF information for the image.

u Alt-Z: View a RAW format image (NEF, ORF, etc) in draft form (super fast). Only applies to RAW CCD format.

u Right click: Access to above via mouse.

Applies to selected thumbnails (must select at least one thumb first):

u Insert key: Add selected images to the queue.

u Ctrl-Insert: Preview all selected images before adding to queue.

u Delete key: Delete selected thumbs/images (deleted the images, not just the thumbs!).

u Ctrl-X: Send selected images to the recycle bin.

u Ctrl-C: Copy selected images to another folder.

u Ctrl-M: Move selected images to another folder.

u Ctrl-R: Rename selected images.

u Ctrl-A: Auto rename images based on image date/time/etc.

u Right click: access to above via mouse.

Queue Shortcuts: To access these shortcuts, simply place the mouse cursor over the file names in the queue and press:

u Enter: Selects/deselects all files in the queue.

u Delete key: Remove the selected images from the queue.

u Ctrl-Delete: Clear the queue.

u Ctrl-C: Convert images in the queue to another image format.

u Shift-Delete: Delete any associated filters from selected images in the queue.

u Ctrl-Z: Use the image comparator to bring up the first two images in the queue side-by-side for comparison.

Dragging and Dropping

u Click and drag one or more thumbnails onto the preview page

1. Drop on the left side of an existing image to insert selected thumbs before that image.

2. Drop on the right side of an existing image to insert selected thumbs after that image.

3. Drop on "white space" on the page to simply add the selected thumbs to the end of the queue/document.

u Click and drag one or more thumbnails into the queue.

1. Drop the thumbnails on "white space" in the queue to simply add the selected thumbs to the end of the queue/document.

2. Drop one selected thumbnail onto an existing filename in the queue to replace that image with the selected thumbnail. This is an easy way to "overwrite" an image on the page. To find your "target" visually, simply click the print on the preview page first and the file name in the queue will be highlighted.

u Click on an image on the preview page and drag it off the page, dropping it on the thumbnails to remove that image from the queue/document.

Double Clicking

u Double click on a thumbnail to add that image to the queue.

u Double click on a file name in the queue to remove that image from the queue.

u Double click on an image on the preview page to use the batch filter on that image.

Other shortcuts

u Highlight a file name in the queue and click "Queue Actions", "Batch Filter" to force the batch filter to start at the selected image.

u To create a new page when operating Qimage in "freehand" positioning, simply click on the small red right-arrow under the preview page.

Popular Shortcuts in Other Areas of Qimage

In the Batch Filter

u Right click on the image to bring up the small blemish and redeye correction window. This window also "doubles" as a real-time update window for filter parameters. As long as you leave this small window open, changes to filter parameters can be previewed instantly in the preview window.

u When creating new images using the batch filter, the filtered versions need not be saved with the {Q} prefix. Click the checkbox that reads "Only use {Q} prefix if destination file already exists" on the final filter application dialog (right before actually saving the filtered images). Qimage will then use the {Q} prefix only if the file being saved already exists (such as if you are saving in the same format and you have NOT selected a different output folder).

Printing using printer profiles

u Use the little hand that appears when you go to the "Print Processing" gorup and click on the color management setting as a "link" to take you to the printer profile setup.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Q: Is there a limit to the paper size in Qimage? I can't seem to find where to change the paper size.

A: There is no limit to the paper size in Qimage. The paper size is controlled by your print driver. Simply click "Page", "Page/Printer Setup". Under "Properties" for your printer, set the new paper size there. After you've performed this step, Qimage will automatically recognize that you've changed the paper size and the main window will update with the new paper size.

Q: When I use some image editing software, it reports that my photos are 72 DPI. Will this affect my printouts and do I need to "resample" or "interpolate" these images up to 300 DPI before using Qimage to print them?

A: This is a misleading concept that we wish some image editing programs wouldn't make so confusing. Although your image editing software may report 72 dpi for a particular photo, digital images simply have no DPI, because images (by themselves) have no relation whatsoever to "inches". Relating images from digital cameras to a physical print size like some photo editing packages do, is simply confusing and a rather useless concept since they do so without consideration of what size you actually intend to print the photo in the first place! In other words, reporting 72 DPI for a 2048 x 1536 resolution image is simply choosing a "default" print size of 28.44 inches by 21.33 inches for absolutely no reason, because editing a photo should not necessarily be linked with a specific print size. Let Qimage "worry" about print size and interpolation at print time. Stored images such as JPG, TIF and other formats simply have a "resolution" which denotes the number of pixels in an image. Obviously, you cannot "translate" image resolution such as 2048 x 1536 into dots per inch (DPI) until you select a print size for that image. For example, if you print that 2048 x 1536 image at a width of 10 inches on your printer, you will get a print that is approximately 200 DPI (2048 pixels divided by 10 inches). In contrast, if you print the same image at 14 inches wide, you'll get a print that is about 150 dpi. Qimage is designed to print images at whatever size you specify, and can automatically ensure that your original images are printed at optimal resolution. Once you set your print quality (under "Prints", "Print Interpolation), you never have to worry about it again! It just doesn't need to be any more complicated than that! For more information on this auto-interpolation, see "Prints", "Print Interpolation" from the main window of Qimage.

Q: I have been told that it is best to resample my images in another software package to increase DPI, or to make sure that the DPI of my print matches my printer. Is this correct?

A: NO! Qimage has higher quality interpolation methods than are available in even the most expensive photo editing tools. YOU SHOULD NEVER RESAMPLE YOUR ORIGINALS when using Qimage, because Qimage will automatically ensure optimal printouts from your original file resolution! If you use another photo editor to resample your photos to 300 DPI (or any resolution), you will actually be DEGRADING the quality of your images because you'll: (1) be interpolating twice: once in the photo editor and once at print time and (2) your photo editor probably doesn't offer extremely high quality interpolation methods such as Vector and Lanczos interpolation. It is best to leave this all important interpolation task to Qimage, since Qimage will interpolate to the resolution of your printer as a final step before printing!

Q: I can't seem to get three 4 x 6 prints on one page? If I want to print 4x6 or 6x4 prints and get three on a single page, how do I do it?

A: You may not have selected a setup that best utilizes paper for 4 x 6 prints. After selecting the 4x6 size, simply click the "Optimal" placement method. This will guarantee that you get three 4x6 prints on the page if there is enough room (if the page size is at least 8x10). In other placement modes (other than "Optimal") you will have to set the paper itself to portrait orientation and use a 4x6 (portrait) print size to get three 4x6 per page. Note that if the printable area defined by your printer (listed above the preview page) is less than 8.0 inches on one side or 10.0 inches on the other side, it is physically impossible to fit three 4x6 prints on a page.

Q: What's the big deal about associative filters? Why do you say they are so powerful?

A: In digital imaging (like many things in life), it is always important to retain the original. This becomes especially important when using lossy compression schemes such as the JPEG (JPG) images downloaded from most cameras. Associative filters allow you to maintain the original/untouched image but associate some needed "whole picture" filtering/enhancement. By creating a filter that is applied to the original image, we bypass two major hurdles: (1) There will be no further JPEG losses to "modified" images, and (2) the "modified" image does not have to be resaved because the filter is automatically applied every time Qimage opens the image... for literally every operation. Number (2) becomes very important in a "JPEG world" because due to the fact that JPEG compression losses are additive, we would have to save the modified image in an uncompressed (or at least much larger) image format to retain the kind of quality that you can get from associative filters.

Q: How can I use associative filters to automatically rotate images that are taken in portrait mode with my digital camera.

A: This is one of the simplest uses for an associative filter. Just follow these steps.

(1) Navigate to the folder that contains the images. Select all images (by looking at the thumbnails) that are rotated.

(2) Add these images to the queue... you are now ready to use a batch associative filter on images in the queue.

(3) Select "Queue", "Batch Filter" from the top menu bar.

(4) The first image in the queue is displayed. Click in the "Rotate" box in the upper right and enter 90 (or -90 depending on which way you want to rotate). Note that you can also use "Lossless JPEG Xforms" to rotate images and resave without compression losses if you are working with JPG images.

(5) Click the "Apply" button on the bottom of the parameter group. If the image on screen is rotated the correct way, we are ready to batch process. If not, simply enter a new value in "Rotate" and press the "Apply" button again. Remember that you do not have to reset the image to the original before making a change to a parameter. All parameters apply to the original.

(6) Click "File", "Save Filtered Image(s)" on the top menubar.

(7) When the Application window pops up, select "All images..." under "Scope"

(8) Next click "Associate" and then click "Ok"

A very small associative filter (file) will be saved with each image in the queue. Qimage will read the filter and use it for every operation (including thumbnails, printing, etc.). By doing this, you avoid wasted space (because another (rotated) version of the image is never saved). You also avoid any/all JPEG losses that would be present in a re-saved JPEG file. Since Qimage opens the original file (unrotated) and then applies filter parameters, there are no JPEG losses.

Q: I have created a complex filter that I want to save for use later, but I don't want to apply it to any images. How do I do this.

A: Simply go to the batch filter, create your filter, and then click "File", "Save Filter Parameters" from the top menubar and then click "Save...". The saved filter is saved by default in the Qimage folder. To test it or apply it later, just repeat the process and select "Load..." rather than "Save...".

Q: Some images have filters that I no longer want applied. How can I remove the filters?

A: Simply add the image to the queue. You will notice the word "<filtered>" next to the filenames in the queue. Just select the filenames in the queue and right click and select "Delete Filters".

Q: More complex filters seem to take longer to load/print. Is this normal?

A: Yes. Qimage only performs filtering/enhancement when needed. In other words, if all you do is rotate an image, Qimage only performs a rotation and skips all other steps. The more non-zero values that you enter, the longer Qimage will take to view/print images. Some of the CCD filters are quite complex and can run for up to a minute or more depending on image size.

Q: I understand that associative filters do not modify the original file, but how does Qimage handle images that have a rotation filter. Will these get rotated twice if the software "automatically rotates" images to fit within bounds?

A: Don't think about it that way. Think of it exactly like you "really" rotated the image. Qimage handles all the details so that every operation is done as if you had actually resaved the file (except there will be no JPEG losses like there would if you actually resaved a JPEG file). Of course, other programs will still see the original as "the original".

Q: I would like to view/print my images in black and white. Can I do this without selecting black ink only on my print driver?

A: Sure. Just set an associative filter that has -100 in the all channels under "saturation" and batch process the images in the queue. Be aware though, that you'll lose whatever filters (if any) that you had before.

Q: I set an associative filter with a sharpen value of 2. Now I want to increase this to 4. If I enter "4" in the sharpness parameter is the filter going to add "4" to the previous "2" and get "6"?

A: No. Filters are not additive. Any filter you set is identifying new parameters.

Q: How do I select multiple thumbnails or files and drag them to any position on the page.

A: You can click on a thumbnail/file in the list to select it. To mark more than one, hold the Ctrl key down before you press the mouse button on the next image (like any Windows function). Once you have all the thumbnails marked, click anywhere in the thumbnails and hold the left mouse button down. Keep holding the button while you drag the mouse pointer over to the small preview page in the upper right. When you release the left mouse button on the small preview page, the images will be placed on that page at the location dropped. Note that if you want to drop the images before an image on the preview page, drop them on the left side of that image. Dropping the images on the right side of an image on the preview page places the new images after the image on the preview page. If you drop images on white space (not pointing to an image), the images will not be placed on that page. Instead they will simply be added to the end of the document. These three techniques allow you to perform any and all add functions by simply dragging images.

Q: I know Qimage has the capability of adding text annotations, but I can't find the function. Where is it?

A: More detailed page editing functions can be found in the page editor. Once you have added images to your document, select "Page", "Edit Page". You may now click the right mouse button on any image on the page for a full list of editing options. Select "Text Annotation" from the options list and you will be prompted for the annotation for the selected image.

Q: Images on the page editor look grainy. I would like to see more detail. How do I do this?

A: Qimage has many options which allow the user to either save time, or see detailed information depending on need. If images look grainy in the page editor, it is because the "view" option in the right panel of the screen is set to "Thumbs/Small Images". When this setting is in effect, Qimage loads the thumbnails to save time. To see the detailed image in high resolution, simply change the "view" option at the top of the screen to "All Images".

Q: I use a folder for editing many images and have deleted some old images and added some new ones. How can I delete the old thumbnails (files with {Q} extension) and create new ones for the new images?

A: Just click "View", "Rebuild thumbs". This will delete all old thumbnails and create new ones based on what is currently in the directory/folder.

Q: I have some folders with hundreds of images in them. I like to keep Qimage in the "thumbnail" mode all the time, but when I go to a new folder that has many images, do I have to wait for Qimage to load the thumbnails before I begin adding images?

A: No. Qimage is loading the thumbnails in the background. You may perform any operation you like while Qimage is loading thumbnails. You may select thumbnails that have already been loaded while Qimage is still loading more, and if you know the name of images further down on the list, you can even select them before the thumbnail appears. Keep in mind that Qimage will only need to load the thumbnails once if you check the "Save thumbs" box. The next time you go into the folder/directory, Qimage will load the thumbnails very quickly.

Q: I would like to leave a margin on one side of the paper so that I can punch holes, etc. Can this be done?

A: Most print drivers have an option that allows you to select a "custom paper size". Open your print driver and click the "properties" button. Select "paper size" and locate the option to create a custom paper size. You can then enter the size of the area you would like to print on, and the print driver should take care of the rest. As an alternative, you can also select "Page", "Margins" and enter a left margin.

Q: When I check "Img Info", sometimes the filename, resolution, date, etc. print, but sometimes only the filename prints. What am I doing wrong?

A: The amount of information that can be printed depends on the size of the printed image. For example, if you print images at 4 x 6, probably all of the information will be printed. If you then decide to print 2 x 3 images, it is possible that only the filename will fit under the image. It all depends on the size of the printed image. If you need to print more information under very small images, consider changing the printer font size to something smaller, like "Small Fonts" with a size of 6. You can do this via "Page", "Printer Font".

Q: What does the "swap" button do in the page editor?

A: For any image that is not square (same horizontal and vertical resolution), this will have the effect of rotating the image 90 degrees.

Q: When downloading images from my digicam floppy adapter, I have to click dozens of times on different directories, go to the A: drive, select the folder, mark the files, create a new directory to store them in, copy them, etc. How can I simplify the tedious steps of downloading images from a digital camera floppy adapter (or other file source).

A: Use the "File", "Flash Card Copy/Move" function.

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Operational Notes

Overall operational Notes

Spool space - Qimage preserves full image detail when printing to your printer, regardless of print size. For this reason, your printer may require a very large hard drive "spool" file. Requirements of over 500 megabytes of spool space are not uncommon when printing a few dozen images in one image document. Please make sure that your print spooler or print driver is pointing to a drive with plenty of free space for spooling high resolution images. In addition, there should be plenty of free space on the drive where Qimage itself is installed (if this is a different drive from the one your print spooler uses).

Qimage performance - The amount of time that Qimage takes to spool a print job is directly related to the settings under "Prints", "Print Interpolation". The higher your settings, the longer Qimage will take to process them (and the better your prints will look in general). Note that Qimage normally generates much larger spool files and takes a bit longer to process your images than the average printing program due to the super high quality interpolation being performed. Choosing an interpolation setting of "None" under "Print", "Print Inteprolation" will cause Qimage to print as fast or faster than other printing programs while generating prints of about the same quality as other software. We recommend, however, setting the interpolation to "Max" or "High" with the interpolation method set to "Vector" as this setting will result in prints of incredible quality, even when printed larger than recommended sizes. Print settings of "Max" and "Vector" will result in super high quality prints comparable to those generated by fractal resampling programs!

Thumbnail storage - Qimage thumbnails are normally stored in a folder called "Thumbs" directly under the "Qimage" folder. After periods of extended use (browsing many images), the thumbnails can occupy a large amount of space on your hard drive. You can click "Utilities", "Manage Thumbnail Cache" for options regarding management of thumbnails.

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Trouble Shooting

Troubleshooting

This section is designed to help all users troubleshoot problems that may arise when using Qimage. The following is a list of common problems that can occur during operation. Since Qimage allows a wide range of flexibility in program options, many of the errors listed occur because of bad (corrupted) images, improper settings, bad video or print drivers, etc.

Problem	Resolution
Thumbnails on main screen do not display entirely, are smudged, or do not update properly.	There are several things that can cause this problem: 1. Your video board may not be able to support video acceleration when set to the high setting. Check http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/notice.htm for details on how to reduce video acceleration.  2. A video driver bug. If the above fails, you will need to download a new driver for your video board. Download the video driver from the manufacturer of your video board, NOT the manufacturer of your computer.
When applying filters using the batch filter, Qimage locks up or is unresponsive.	If there is simply no response and you still have the hour glass showing on screen, Qimage is just not finished running your filter. There are many filters available that are time-intensive and these can be combined to create filters that take several minutes (if not longer) to run. For example, running a plugin along with the D1 ISO filter will take about one minute on a 500 MHZ Pentium. Adding the shadow noise filter or other filters can double or triple this figure. Just be aware that the more complex you make your filter (the more parameters you change), the longer the filter will take to apply. In addition to complexity, you may have told Qimage to apply the filter to 100 images in the queue, at which point it could be hours before control returns to Qimage.
When applying filters using the batch filter or simply viewing images, the "parameter is incorrect" error appears.	Whenever certain functions request memory from Windows, if the amount of memory needed exceeds what is available, Windows displays a message that reads "The parameter is incorrect". When this message appears, your PC has run out of memory. You may be trying to interpolate an image to a size that is too large by using the "Resolution" parameter in the batch filter. It is also possible that you are working on an image that is simply too large to have the multiple copies in memory needed for doing some filters. Some scanned images can fit into this category. Be aware that if you scan an 8x10 image using your scanner at 600 dpi, that is an 86 megabyte image that almost NO program will be able to deal with. Even at 300 dpi, an 8x10 is still nearly 22 megabytes. Also be aware that Qimage allows you to set a global filter. If you get this error while simply viewing images, you may have a global filter turned on that requires extensive amounts of memory. Check "Settings", "Global Filter" and make sure the filter is appropriate for your images. If the global filter is "On", you might want to just turn it off to see if it improves performance. Finally, if you get the "parameter is incorrect" error and you are running Windows 98 SE, you may be low on resources before even running Qimage. Many programs have trouble running under Win98SE and use memory without "giving it back" when you exit. If you are having trouble and you are running Win98SE, we recommend checking out several programs that are designed to clean up your memory as you use Windows. Some good (and free) programs to do this are: MemTurbo RamBooster
When printing, an error appears such as "Parameter is incorrect", "Win32 Error", the program finishes printing but blank page(s) are ejected from the printer, or printing halts part way through a job.	The most common cause of this error is that the print driver ran out of memory and could not handle the amount of data being passed to it by Qimage. A common problem that causes blank pages to be ejected is related to your print driver's spooling method. Check your system by using "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel" and then "Printers". Right click on your printer and select "Properties". On the "Details" tab, click the button that says "Spool Settings". On the next window, make sure that the spool data format is "RAW" and not "EMF". If the properties of your printer (above) include an option to "Enable Advanced Printing Features", also make sure that this option is off. If you continue to have trouble, you can also try checking the radio button to "Print directly to printer". Finally, if running Windows 2000 or NT, be aware that the operating system itself has its own spool settings for the print server. Make sure enough space is allocated to the spooler here as well. Some networks limit print jobs to a certain size so you may have to check with your network administrator if problems occur when printing to a network printer. One of the above suggestions will normally fix any problems related to the amount of print data being sent to the printer.
Why does "Spool one page at a time" option not work under Windows NT/2000?	If you are trying to limit the size of print jobs, using the option to "Spool one page at a time" located under "Prints", "Print Interpolation" can prevent crashes caused by the operating system or print driver not being able to handle large jobs. Unfortunately, the "Spool one page at a time" option will not work under Windows NT/2000/XP unless you tell the operating system to stop "squelching" print spooler messages. We do this by setting the registry entry named "EnableBroadcastSpoolerStatus" to a value of 1 instead of 0. This can be done by using "RegEdit" to change the value of the registry entry. Please note that if you are unfamiliar with using RegEdit, it can be dangerous to play with values stored there unless you know exactly what they do. Perform the following steps at your own risk! To configure Windows NT/2000/XP so that "Spool one page at a time" will work, follow these steps: 1. Click "Start", "Run" and type "Regedit" and click "OK"  2. Double click to open HKEY_LOCAL MACHINE  3. Double click System  4. Double click CurrentControlSet  5. Double click Control  6. Double click Print  7. On the right half of the window, you should see an entry for EnableBroadcastSpoolerStatus. If the entry does not exist, right click on "Print" on the left side of the window and select "New", "DWORD Value". Then type the name: EnableBroadcastSpoolerStatus. Once this entry has been located or added, Double click on EnableBroadcastSpoolerStatus in the right window to change its value data.  8. Under "Value data", replace the 0 with a 1  9. Click "OK" and close RegEdit Once the above steps have been performed, Qimage's "Spool one page at a time" should work properly.
Printing small to medium size images works fine, but larger size prints (8x10 for example) won't print or look dark.	Again, this is caused by your print driver not being able to handle the large image(s) being passed to it by Qimage. See the item above for details on setting up your print spooler to handle large amounts of data. Note that some print drivers have problems with certain functions when large amounts of data are sent to the driver. If your print driver has options like "auto contrast" or "contrast enhancement", try turning them off because the print driver may not be able to calculate the proper "exposure" for the image due to limitations of the driver and its inability to process higher resolution data. When this driver "bug" comes into play, larger size images often appear very dark or all black.
An error appears as you move the mouse pointer over the thumbnail or file area.	One or more of the images in the current folder could be corrupted or unreadable for some reason. When you move the mouse over the thumbs/filenames, the EXIF Hotbar attempts to display EXIF information on the bottom status bar. If this happens, try turning off the hotbar using "View", "Interface", "EXIF Hotbar" and uncheck the option. When starting Qimage, make sure not to move the mouse pointer over the thumbnails until you turn off the EXIF Hotbar. If you are unable to start the program, try starting Qimage in safe mode by holding the shift key as you start the program. You can then turn off the EXIF hotbar and reset the interface to thumbs if you like.
A message such as "EPrinter Error" appears immediately on startup of Qimage.	This indicates that the settings normally stored by Qimage regarding your printer, have become corrupted. You can start Qimage in "safe" mode by holding down the Shift key as you start Qimage. This should clear the error.
Any other startup problem is occuring which prevents Qimage from starting up.	First, have you tried starting Qimage a second time? Startup errors that cause Qimage to fail starting up are usually detected and fixed if you simply start Qimage again. Failing the above, you can try "booting" Qimage in safe mode first by holding down the shift key as you start the program. There are two files that control all the settings in Qimage. If all else fails, you can delete these two files to "reset" Qimage to "factory defaults". c:\program files\qimage\qimage.ini c:\program files\qimage\qimagepr.ini
Print output is blocky or "pixelated".	You may have print interpolation turned off. Check "Prints", "Print Interpolation" and make sure that you have the "Vector" interpolation method selected and a print interpolation setting of "Max" for maximum quality prints.
Print output is blurry or soft.	Inappropriate print interpolation settings can cause this. Check "Prints", "Print Interpolation" and make sure that you have the "Vector" interpolation method selected and a print interpolation setting of "Max" for maximum quality prints. Also check the sharpening settings on that same window.
Print output has horizontal lines.	This is most likely due to a bad or empty print cartridge. Run your printer through it's quality test to determine if the cartrige needs to be replaced.
When trying to open or browse JPG/JPEG images, an error message appears, often referencing imagelib.dll.	If you are working with JPG/JPEG images that were written or saved from Adobe PhotoShop, make sure that the "progressive" box is not checked. Adobe PhotoShop apparently encodes progressive JPEG's in a format that Qimage cannot read.
An access violation or other error appears when starting Qimage, even after deleting the INI files. Qimage will not start as a result.	If you are using Windows 2000 and your default Windows printer is a network printer, make sure that the printer is connected and configured properly. Qimage querries your Windows default printer as soon as you open the program. If your default Windows printer is not connected properly, Windows 2000 apparently produces an access violation error rather than reporting that the printer is not available. Resetting your Windows default printer to an accessible/working printer or a local printer should cure this startup problem. See "Start", "Settings", "Printers" to set your Windows default printer.
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Qimage Distributors

Qimage Worldwide Distributors

Exclusive Distributor to India

Company Name : J. J. MEHTA & SONS
Address : Narayan Smruti , Chhabildas Road, Dadar(W), Bombay 400 028 , INDIA
Phone : 91-22-4302104 / 4306356 / 4326865
Fax : 91-22-4306747
Email (Sales) : sales@jjmehta.com
Email (Info) : info@jjmehta.com

To become a Qimage distributor, please contact Mike Chaney at mchaney@ddisoftware.com

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Color Management (ICC)

General Notes:

Qimage now supports ICC profiles for input devices (cameras and scanners) as well as your printer and monitor. Color profiles are used to ensure accurate and consistent color for output devices. You can access Qimage color management by selecting "Settings" from the top menubar on the main screen and then "Color Management".

Intro:

Accurate color management requires that you address the three devices in your digital imaging workflow equally: your camera (input device) and your monitor and printer (output devices). Since color management requires that you have: (a) an ICC profile that describes the color response of your camera, (b) an ICC profile that describes the color response of your monitor, and (c) an ICC profile that describes the color response of your printer, it can be argued that there is no need to attempt color management or to work with ICC profiles unless you have data (profiles) for all three variables: camera, printer, and monitor. Using ICC profiles to manage color is like using a road map. You need to know the starting point and the ending point and then you can describe how to get from point A to point B. In the world of ICC profiles and color management, this means specifying an input/camera profile (starting point) and a monitor or printer profile (ending point). Your software (in this case Qimage) can then translate how your camera "sees" color into how your monitor or printer "sees" color. What you need to do to manage color properly is described below.

Details:

Device Profiles

First, define the color profiles for your output devices (monitor and printer). Click "Settings", "Color Management" from the top menu bar and then:

u To set up a monitor profile: Check the "Enabled" box next to "Monitor" and then click the "..." selection button to browse ICC profiles for your monitor. If you do not have a specific ICC profile for your monitor (most systems have some generic monitor profiles located in the C:/WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/spool/drivers/colo folder), you can select the generic sRGB profile from your Qimage folder. Please note that selecting sRGB or even a manufacturer supplied profile can lead to results that vary widely from monitor to monitor, system to system. This method of selecting a "generic" profile may work reasonlably well in some cases, and not well at all in other cases. As a result, although it can't hurt to try an existing/generic profile as a first step, results may vary and may or may not be acceptable. sRGB should provide a reasonable middle ground for most monitors and for web display, however, sRGB will not match any particular monitor perfectly! It is best to use a monitor colorimeter (small device that attaches to your monitor with suction cups) to actually measure the response of your monitor. Although there are visual calibration utilities available that walk you through a visual inspection/calibration process, these programs provide nothing better than an educated guess for calibration and can often result in images not being accurately displayed. Also note that if you do not use a hardware colorimeter to create a profile specific for your particular monitor and use a generic color profile like sRGB, you may see too much red in your images, shifts of some colors, other color casts, etc. Note that even monitor profiles supplied by manufacturers can often be inaccurate, as these (although they may be labelled with your monitor model) are often developed for a whole line of monitors and are too generic to describe the response of the monitor sitting in front of you. Therefore, buying and using a colorimeter to produce an accurate profile is always recommended for the most accurate color possible. The colorimeter (most are between $200 and $300 in price range) will create a custom ICC profile for you that you can then activate in Qimage under "Settings", "Color Management", "Monitor". It may seem like a bit of an investment, but there is really no need to buy expensive digital cameras or scanning equipment if you have no way to calibrate your output devices to ensure that you are getting accurate color!

u To set up a printer profile: Simply check the "Enabled" box in the "Printer (output)" group and then click the "..." selection button and select the ICC profile for your printer. This could be the profile you created when you used software to calibrate your printer, or one that you downloaded off the web from the manufacturer, etc. Please note that most printer profiles only apply to one media type, therefore it is extremely important that: (1) you have the right profile selected for your current media type and (2) your printer properties (under "Queue Actions", "Printer Setup") are set to the exact parameters required for the profile. For example, most printer profiles are designed for the printer properties set up for "no color management" since you are performing color management here separately. If so, you'll need to make sure that your driver settings are set appropriately. Please refer to either the software users guide if you created the profile yourself, or the instruction from the web site where you obtained the profile. When in doubt, set the print driver to the most "plain vanilla" settings as possible, i.e. the highest quality settings but NO color management. Remember that when you set up the Qimage color management for your printer, you do not want to have the "ICC" box checked in your print driver. If you do, you'll be "doubling up" on the profile (Qimage will profile it once and then your print driver will profile it again). If you cannot locate a profile for your printer, it is possible that your printer is set up by default to assume sRGB color space, so you could try selecting sRGB.ICM from the c:\program files\qimage folder as a last resort although the results will vary widely from printer to printer, paper type to paper type, etc. As with calibration of your monitor (above), there is really no way to guarantee a color match unless you use profiling software to create a custom profile that describes exactly how your printer responds. Printer profiles that are available on the web are often too generic in nature to be 100% accurate and may be designed to be used with some other printing software. Once again, a little investment in money and time can ensure an accurate match for your printer. If you want a perfect match for your prints, you'll need custom printer profiling software, and you'll need to follow the instructions below entitled "Instructions for using printer profiling tools with Qimage".

Next, define the color space used by your input devices (digicam, scanner, etc):

u About the image (input) profiles: You can associate multiple devices with ICC profiles using the grid under "Input profiles". The first line in the grid is always a "fall back" selection to be used when a specific device profile cannot be matched. You can add as many lines after this first entry as you like, specifying either the device model name (based on EXIF model number) or the resolution of the images. Using the grid to "tag" your devices with specific ICC profiles allows you to define the color spaces used by different devices. Most cameras and scanners, although their images may look acceptable without profiling, do not normally deliver images that truly conform to any known color space. If you have ICC profiles that define the color space used by your output devices like your printer and monitor, you need an input profile that describes the color space of your camera or scanner to be able to accurately display or print images. For example, if you have an ICC profile that describes the color space used by the Nikon CP990 camera, you could add a new line in the table, enter (or browse to) the profile name to that row in the table by clicking the "Select ICC Profile" button. Next, while still on the same row in the table, click the "Extract EXIF Model Name" button and select an ORIGINAL image (JPG or TIFF) from the CP990 camera. The model name "E990" will be entered in the table. It's that simple. Qimage will now use the specified ICC profile any time an ORIGINAL CP990 image is displayed or printed (provided you enabled the monitor and printer profiles - see above). We all know that EXIF information is not always preserved after modifying originals, so you can also specify the resolution as a last resort. For example, if you leave the EXIF model name blank and enter 2048 and 1536 in the X res and Y res columns respectively, Qimage will use the specified profile on all 2048 x 1536 images. Note that the only reason we need to have an input table that "tags" certain types of images with certain profiles is that most cameras do not embed the ICC profile inside the images they save. If you have a camera that saves the embedded profile information inside its images, there is no need to do this "external tagging": see "About embedded profiles" in the next bullet.

Some places to find profiles specific to your camera model:

u Manufacturer: Some of the latest model cameras are supplied with ICC profiles on the software/driver installation CD. If you search those CD's for files with extension "ICC" or "ICM", you may be able to find a profile designed for your camera by the manufacturer. At the time of this writing, this is the exception rather than the rule. Most cameras are supplied with no ICC profiles to describe color response.

u Camera itself: Some newer cameras allow you to select a color space (profile) for saved images. The Nikon D1H/D1X for example, allow you to select Adobe RGB or sRGB as the profile used to store images. If your camera allows you to specify the profile to use, it may be a generic profile such as Adobe, sRGB, etc. If so, you already have your camera profile. Just browse to \program files\qimage (default) and select the proper profile from that location.

u DDI profile: The developer of Qimage (Digital Domain Inc.) may have developed a camera specific profile for your camera. The list of cameras that DDI has tested and supplies profiles for is available on the ICC Profiles Page. These profiles can be purchased for a very small fee, however, due to the amount of testing required to develop profiles, a profile for your specific model may not be available.

u Custom profile: Profiling tools specifically designed for the purpose of profiling digital cameras are available. Unfortunately, the tools designed specifically for digital cameras can cost $600 or more and their cost and usage/development requirements may be beyond what many users are willing to invest.

u Generic profile: Depending on the camera model, it may be possible to get a relatively reasonable color match by using a generic "working space" profile. Many users have reported that using a generic profile such as sRGB or Color Match (cmatch) produces acceptable results. If all else fails, it can't hurt to search through the generic profiles available with Qimage, located (by default) in \program files\qimage. You may find that sRGB, Color Match, CIE, Adobe, or one of the other generic profiles does a reasonable job of describing how your camera responds to color.

u About embedded profiles: Qimage currently supports embedded profiles in JPEG/TIFF images. Images modified in high end photo editors will be saved with the editing space (profile) saved in the image, if that image was saved as a JPEG/TIFF file. Qimage will now automatically recognize and use the embedded profile in the image. Note that you will need to have Monitor ICC and Printer ICC turned on for Qimage to be able to properly utilize the embedded profile when viewing/printing. Note that if a profile is embedded in an image, the input table under "Color Management" is ignored and the embedded profile is used instead.

u How about raw image formats?: Beginning with version 12.02, Qimage automatically recognizes and assigns an appropriate input profile whenever an image with a raw format file extension (such as NEF, ORF, etc) is viewed or printed. This means that you do not need an entry in the "Input Profiles" table for raw format images: they will automatically be assigned an appropriate raw format profile from your Qimage program folder. If you check in the folder where you have Qimage installed (normally \program files\qimage), you will see all the common working spaces like sRGB, Apple, Adobe, etc. and the raw format profiles will also be installed in the same folder and must be present in that location for Qimage to be able to properly profile raw CCD images. Note that if the raw profiles are not present in the folder with the "qimage.exe" program, raw images will not be profiled and will look very dark with inaccurate color. In addition, if your monitor and printer profiles have not been selected and activated (see above), Qimage may know what to profile from but will not know what color space to profile to, and the raw (dark/inaccurate) data will be displayed. See the D1 NEF Tips page online for more info on profiling D1 NEF images. Similar methods apply to other raw formats.

How ICC Profiles are Handled at a (Windows) System Level

What about profiles associated with monitors/printers at the system (Windows) level?

u Some versions of Windows allow you to associate specific ICC profiles with your display and your printer(s). For example, you can associate an ICC profile with your monitor by clicking on your "Display", "Properties" and clicking the "Color Management" tab, adding an ICC profile to the list and activating it as the default. Note that this is simply a method of specifying which ICC profile is associated with your devices. Windows does not do anything with this information "internally", nor does it change anything about the appearance of your display at a system level as a result! This entry is nothing more than a placeholder that allows you to specify what ICC profile "belongs" to your monitor/printer. It is up to individual applications to utilize this information. Note however, that due to inconsistencies in how different Windows operating systems function (not all Windows versions even support color management), Qimage will ignore the entries entered here (at the system level, tagged to your devices). Instead, in Qimage, we use the "Monitor ICC" or "Printer ICC" entries to do this association.

About display "auto loaders"

u Most monitor calibration utilities have two steps: (a) a step that allows you to get your monitor into a known working condition, and (b) a step that creates an ICC profile to be used in photo applications. The small "auto loaders" that change the appearance of your display when you boot your computer are designed only to get your monitor into a set of know working conditions. This loader does not load or utilize an ICC profile. The auto loader is used as a kind of pre-calibration that ensures that when the ICC profile is utilized, that it will work properly. These bootup auto loaders should not be confused with ICC profiles, nor should they be thought of as a true "calibration" of your monitor at a system level.

Other ICC Profile Related Issues Applicable to Qimage

About working spaces:

u Working spaces available in your Qimage folder: Most of the popular working spaces (such as Adobe, sRGB, etc) are located in the Qimage folder - usually c:\program files\qimage). If you edit images often in PhotoShop and save them in another space such as Adobe, you might want to change your "fall back" input profile (first line in the grid under color management) to Adobe.ICM. Doing this will allow you to edit images in another ICC aware application and still use the appropriate profile when printing the images that have been saved in another color space.

Profile to profile conversions:

u Converting from one color space to another: You can now convert images from one color space to another color space whenever you use the batch filter or the image converter (right click in the queue, select "convert images"). Note that the profile conversion appears on the filter application window that appears after using the batch filter, i.e. it is not a part of the batch filter. You can only do profile to profile conversions from the batch filter when you select "Create New Images" after selecting "apply filter". For example, if you purchased the Nikon D1 JPEG color space profile (see the link on the Qimage homepage), in addition to being able to print and display super accurate images using Qimage, you can also convert those D1 images into a color space more suitable for web display. To do this, just add some D1 JPEG's to the queue and then right click in the queue and select "convert images". At the bottom of the dialog, check the "profile to profile conversion" box and enter the nikond1.ICM profile in the "From" box and "sRGB.ICM" (found in your Qimage folder) in the "To" box. All images will be converted into the specified "To" profile and you will have the originals (in the nikond1.ICM color space) and the converted images (in sRGB.ICM color space).

u Converting multiple files from multiple cameras: If you enter <input> in the "From" box, Qimage will select the appropriate device input profile using the information in the grid under "Settings", "Color Management". Using this parameter will allow you to convert a batch of D1 and S1 image from their respective color spaces into sRGB for example.

Appearance of thumbnail and draft images used in printout previews, etc.

u Thumbnails and draft images: The images that you see in the thumbnail grid and on the small preview page will appear different depending on your settings at the time the thumbnails were created. When you enter a new folder or select "Refresh Thumbs", the thumbnails are saved using the current settings under "Settings", "Color Management", "Monitor". In other words, if you have monitor color management turned OFF and you select "Refresh Thumbs", your thumbnails will continue to appear as they do with color management OFF until you refresh them again with monitor color management ON. Similarly, thumbnails will appear as they do with color management ON if they were created that way and have not been refreshed. Qimage uses this method to speed up thumbnail display since profiling numerous thumbnails "on the fly" would slow down program operation.

Instructions for using printer profiling tools with Qimage:

The following tips apply to generating your own printer profiles for use with Qimage. If you are using third party profile generators such as WiziWYG, Monaco EZ Color, etc. the following will help ensure that you get the most accurate color possible when printing with Qimage.

1. In your profiling generation software, use the "Save TIFF" option to save the target as a TIF file.

2. Exit the profiling software and go into Qimage and print the test target that was saved in (1) and print it using Qimage on a portrait page, filling the page. Make sure you use the exact same Qimage AND print driver settings that you will be using *after* you create the profile: print driver color correction turned off, "Max" print quality in QP, etc.

3. Now go back into your profiling software and create your profile using the test target printed by Qimage.

4. Now that you have a profile and want to use it in Qimage, when you print through Qimage, simply ensure that your print driver settings are the same as when the profile was created and use the profile that your profiling software saved under "Printer" in Qimage's own "Settings", "Color Management" section. Of course, just as important is to ensure that Qimage's input color profile "manager" is pointing all your cameras to the right *input* profile. Fortunately, that's simple to do: just look at the entry in the queue and the input profile that is connected to all of your images is displayed on the right.

Even if you don't use Qimage and use another package to print, we would always recommend using the package that you will be using *after* the profiling to actually *do* the profiling. I would *never* recommend simply "dumping" the profile to the printer like most profiling packages allow you to. You should be using the same printing tools on both ends otherwise more variables creep into the equation.

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Floating Text

Floating Text - You can add text to any part of an existing page, including on top of existing photos. To access this feature, locate an existing page by browsing through the pages in the queue using the preview page on the main window. Then click the "open book" speed button at the top, or click "Page", "Edit Page" to go to the page editor. Once the page is opened in the page editor, you can add text to the page by clicking the small "A" button on the right side of the window or by right clicking on the page and selecting "Floating Text" from the menu. Then simply move over to the page and click in the location where you want the text placed. The following outlines some of the options available when placing text on a page in Qimage.

u Placing text: Click the "A" button on the right side of the window or right click on the page and select "Floating Text". Then move to any area of the page and left click to place text at that location. Use the dialog that appears next to enter your text properties (below).

u Moving text: Move the mouse over the small circle next to the text to be moved. The mouse cursor will change to a pointing hand indicating that the mouse is over a text anchor. While the pointing hand is showing, click and drag the text to a new location by moving its anchor. You will be able to view the text as it is being moved. Hint: Hold the shift key down before selecting/moving a text label to move all labels that are linked to the same print as a group.

u Color of the anchors (small circles): Since text can be rotated at any angle and can be of any size, small circular "anchors" are used to "grab" floating text. The anchor color is significant because it tells you something about the placement of the text. A green circle indicates that the text is free floating and is linked to the page. A red circle indicates that the text is linked to a particular print and the text will move and be sized in coordination with that print (if the print is resized/moved, the linked text is resized/moved accordingly). A blue circle indicates that the text is linked with the print that is currently selected on the page (the print outlined by a red rectangle).

u Changing text properties: To change text parameters like shadowing, amount of rotation, font, color, etc. simply move the mouse pointer over the text anchor (small circle) next to the text in question. When the pointing hand appears, simply right click and the text properties will appear.

u Deleting existing text: There are multiple ways to delete text. First, if the text is linked to a particular print and that print is deleted, the text associated with that print is also deleted. Second, you may delete text by right clicking on the text anchor and clicking the "Delete" button on the text properties window. Deleting (blanking) the text on the text properties window and clicking "OK" will also delete the text label.

u Alignment: Since floating text labels can only be created one line at a time, there are some features that will assist you in creating text that spans multiple lines (rows). For example, you can enter a line of text and check the box for "Auto Align" and check the "Horizontal" radio button. When your text is placed on the page with this auto align setting, the text will be aligned horizontally to the label on that same page that shares the closest horizontal alignment. Using this method, you can ensure that successive lines added to your document will align perfectly.

u Linking tip: If you know in advance (before you create a text label) that you want that label linked to a particular print, click on that print first and then right click and select "Floating Text". When you use the right click menu option to add text, the "link to selected print" option is automatically enabled by default. If you use the "A" on the right side of the window, Qimage will assume that you are adding text to the page itself rather than the print and it will not check the "link to selected print" box when the properties window is opened (although you can still check that option if you like).

u Note on rotation: You can rotate text to any angle you desire and that rotation with respect to the linked print will be maintained (if the text is linked to a print). Note, however that this only applies to rotating the print itself. For example, if you have text linked to a print and you select a print on the main window and then right click and select "Rotate frame/size", the print will rotate 90 degrees on the page, and the text will rotate also. It is important to note, however, that rotations entered through the batch filter will not cause a similar rotation of the text because by rotating the image in the batch filter, you are rotating/modifying the image itself, not the print. The text links only link text to prints, not the image content itself.

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Add to queue

Add to Queue - add the images selected in the thumbnail/files window to the queue (bottom window) at the default size shown above the thumbnail area. As alternatives, you may double click thumbnails to add one at a time, press the insert key, or drag the selected images onto the preview page in the upper right corner of the main screen. When you drop the images, they will be placed on the page/position where you dropped them.

Access:

u Right click in the thumbnail view with thumbs selected. When the popup menu appears, select "Add to queue".

Alternatives:

u Press the insert key with thumbnails highlighted.

u Drag directly to the preview page (upper right).

u Double click to add one at a time.

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Auto Preview

Auto Preview - The "Auto Preview" option is located in the batch filter window under "View". If enabled, auto preview causes a small filter preview window to open whenever a filter change is being made. For example, when adding contrast, click on the up/down arrow next to the contrast parameter. As soon as the contrast is changed, a small preview window will open showing the change in real time. When finished, the changes can either be accepted (by clicking OK) or canceled (by clicking Cancel). When auto preview is turned off, the preview window can still be activated manually by right clicking on the image. To preview filter changes in real time with auto preview off, simply right click anywhere on the displayed image to activate the preview window and then make the desired filter changes.

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Auto Rename

Auto Rename - Auto rename provides a method for renaming files to the stored image date/time, etc. There are two ways to auto rename in Qimage.

Method 1 - When you use the Flash Card Copy/Move Utility (accessed by clicking "File" from the top menu bar on the main screen and then clicking "Flash Card Copy/Move"), you can rename files as they are moved from one folder (or flash card) to another folder. If you check the auto rename box before clicking the Copy/Move button, the files will be renamed after they are copied.

Method 2 - You can auto rename files that already exist without copying/moving them. To auto rename existing files, simply navigate to the folder containing the files and select the thumbnails/files to be renamed. Then right click in the thumbnails area and select "Auto rename" from the dropdown menu.

Changing the auto rename format - To change the format for renaming files, click "Settings" and "Auto Rename Options" and change the renaming parameters. You can close the rename parameter window by clicking the "x" in the upper right (your parameters will still be saved).

Renaming note: Qimage will use the date/time stored in the EXIF header if one exists. If no EXIF header is present, Qimage will use the date/time stamped on the image file itself (file date/time). Qimage will never overwrite a file when auto renaming. If a file already exists with the given rename format, the next image renamed will be succeeded with an occurrance number. If for example, you had three images with the same date/time (not likely), you would have something like this:

1999-06-15 13:46:20.jpg
1999-06-15 13:46:20(0001).jpg
1999-06-15 13:46:20(0002).jpg

Flexibility: Qimage is very flexible in renaming format. For example, you don't have to use the date/time at all. If you simply want to rename all files by the camera that they came from, you could set the rename parameters to "Nikon 950 " and Qimage would save files as:

Nikon 950 (0001)
Nikon 950 (0002)
Nikon 950 (0003)

Limit: Qimage does have a limit of 9,999 files when auto renaming, so if you reach "Nikon 950 (9999)" for example, the remaining images will simply not be renamed.

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Batch Filter

Batch Filter - The batch filter can be accessed via the batch filter tool button or via "Queue", "Batch Filter" from the main menu. When accessed, the batch filter will activate with the first image in the queue displayed.

You may design your filter by changing the filter parameters on the right side of the window. To assist in the design of your filter, the following functions are available within the batch filter window:

u After changing any number of parameters, you may click the "Apply" button on the bottom of the panel to view the filter on the current image. Note that depending on the complexity of the filter, it may take from several seconds to several minutes to apply the filter.

u To switch between the original and filtered images, select "View" from the top menubar and select "Original Image" or "Filtered Image".

u To preview the filter in "real time" (when moving one of the sliders for example), simply right click on the image and open the zoom/preview window. If you leave this window open while changing filter parameters, the zoom/preview window will update as you make changes.

u If you do not want to save the filtered image(s) but simply want to save the filter parameters so that they can be loaded quickly in the future, click "File", "Save Filter Parameters".

u Although you can save the filtered image(s) at any time using "File", "Save Filtered Image(s)", it is simpler to just close the window or click "Next" to see the next image in the queue. Closing the window or advancing to the next image will always result in a prompt to save the filtered image(s).

u When prompted to save, you first select whether you want to apply the filter to the current image only, or all images in the queue.

u Next, indicate whether you want to associate the filter to the original, or create new images using the filter. If you associate the filter with the original image, be aware that your original image is not modified. Instead, the same filter is applied each time Qimage opens the original image. If you select "create new images", Qimage will apply the filter and save new images in the image format you select, using a {Q} prefix for the filtered image. We recommend using "create new images" for complex filters that take more than a few seconds to run so that time consuming filters are not "executed" each time the original image is opened.

u Finally, click "Ok" to save the filtered image(s).

Using the Undo feature. The batch filter provides two undo actions:

1. Undo Last: Undo the last apply (go back one iteration to view the previous filter parameters that were displayed).

2. Undo All: Undo all changes since the filter was opened (go back to how the image appeared when you first entered the batch filter).

For information on individual filtering options, go to the main list of functions and click on the filter option.

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Blemish/pixel corrector

Blemish/pixel corrector - Blemish correction is an alternative to cloning that is faster and more efficient. Use this option to remove blemishes, red eye, unwanted small objects, or stuck pixels from your photos. To access the blemish corrector, add the images that you would like to correct to the queue and then click the batch filter tool button at the top of the main window (or select "Queue", "Batch Filter" from the main menu bar). You can then check the "Blemish/pixel corrector" box to enter pixel locations manually, but most of the time you will want to visually "melt away" the blemish. To do this, perform the following steps:

u Once you have selected "Batch Filter", right click on the blemish in the image and a zoomed window will appear.

u Using the zoomed window, click in the center of the blemish and drag to the right just past the edge of the blemish. To blend away abnormalities in photos (freckles, sores, etc) always drag from the center toward the right. This will cause the edges of the defined area to be blended inward. To remove red eye, click in the center of the pupil and drag left just past the edge of the pupil (into the iris of the eye) to darken the pupil and remove the red color.

u The blemish and correction radius will be added to the blemish list (you'll see the list to the right). Qimage uses negative radius numbers to indicate red eye correction and positive radius numbers to indicate normal blemish removal.

u If the next blemish is the same size, you can simply single click on the center of the blemish and Qimage will use the last radius you selected. If the new blemish has a different radius, you can click and drag as before.

u IMPORTANT: When finished correcting all blemishes and any other enhancements you selected, you must click "File", "Save Filtered Images" from the top menu bar to associate your filter with the image(s). Or, simply close the batch filter window or click "Next" to filter the next image in the queue and you will be prompted to save on your way out/to the next image.

Summary of the two methods of blemish correction:

Consider the above icon. It is a reminder to always drag from the center toward the left to correct red eye and from the center to the right to fill in blemishes. Remember that Qimage will "pull" the edge color inward to fill in blemishes when dragged to the right. In contrast, it will perform a darkening of pupil when dragged to the left.

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Borders

Borders - Borders may be added to prints to enhance prints by providing a frame. Borders of any size and color may be added. To add new prints at a specified size with a given border, simply select thumbnail(s), enter a non-zero value in the "Border" edit box under the "Prints" group, select the border color by clicking the color "sliver" to the left of the border size, and then click a print size button. To add a border to an existing print, simply select that print on the preview page and then enter your non-zero border size under the "Prints" group, selecting a new border color also if you wish.

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Context Sensitive Help

Context Sensitive Help at Runtime

u u Remember, you can get help on any function in Qimage by holding the mouse pointer steady over that function for at least two seconds. To turn this feature on/off, click "Help", "Context Sensitive Help".

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CCD Filters

CCD Noise Filters - Qimage provides filters specifically designed to remove anomalies associated with CCD's  in digital cameras.  These filters can easily be applied to one or all images in the queue by checking the box(es) found in the batch filter screen.

Dark current filter - Use this filter to remove unwanted "specks" of falsely-lit pixels from night shots or shots with long shutter duration.  This filter needs no dark frame reference so it will work under any conditions.

Shadow noise filter - Use this filter to eliminate shadow noise found in most 2.0 or higher megapixel cameras. This filter will eliminate most 'background' or 'shadow' noise while maintaining a high level of sharpness.

High ISO noise filter - This adaptive filter works by comparing signal-to-noise ratio of each RGB channel and filtering each channel appropriately.  Use when noise appears in an image (usually at high ISO values over 200).

D1 ISO noise filter - Specifically designed for the Nikon D1 digital camera, this filter will remove both banding noise and high frequency noise (dots) from images at high ISO. Note that this filter will ONLY work on original images (JPEG or TIF). This filter will NOT work if you have already modified the original image in any way (smoothing, despeckle, etc).

Dark frame subtraction - Use this filter to subtract hot pixels from long exposures. You may simply subtract dark frames from images, or interpolate hot pixels based on the dark frame. Try both options to see which works best for your shooting conditions. If you select a folder, Qimage will look through the entire folder until it finds an image that has the same camera model, shutter speed and ISO speed. If an match is found, the image is subtracted from the original. If no match is found, the filter is not performed and the original image is returned (without dark frame subtraction). If you select an individual image, that image will be subtracted from original(s) regardless of EXIF information match.

To access these filters, add the images to the queue first and then click the batch filter tool button at the top of the main window or click "Queue", "Batch Filter" from the top menu bar. Check the appropriate box(es) and click "File" and "Save Filtered Image(s)" from the top menubar and click "Ok".

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Image Comparator

Image Comparator - Qimage can be used to compare two images side-by-side. Simply add two (or more) images to the queue and right click in the print queue at the bottom of the main page (this is where the file names are displayed). If you have more than two images already in the queue, you can compare any two images by selecting the two images first. After right clicking in the print queue, select "Comparator" and Qimage will display the two images side-by-side. Alternate: insert two images into the queue and click the "Examine/compare images" button on the top of the main window.

The images are initially loaded at a 1:1 ratio (1 screen pixel = 1 image pixel) so that you can scroll both images to see details, however, by right clicking on either image, you can zoom in/out, rotate the image or brighten/darken the image(s). Note that this screen displays EXIF information above both images. Also be aware that the brighten and darken function are only available as an aid to assist in comparing the two images. Any filtering or editing should be performed first using the batch filter.

To scroll the image when the image is larger than the display box, you can left click and drag the image with the "hand" or scroll using the scroll bars on the bottom and right of the image.

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Cropping

Cropping - You may have noticed that you sometimes cannot fit an entire picture within a "commonly used" frame. For example, there is no way to fit a 1600x1200 image into a 6x4 frame without cutting off (cropping) some of the image. You would normally do this by printing the image a little too large and trimming the edges that overlap the frame. Qimage can do this for you automatically. If the image fitting button (scissors icon) located under "Prints" is depressed, Qimage will crop out the middle of the photo, discarding a portion of either the top and bottom or left and right to force the image to fit in the size selected whenever necessary (when the image aspect ratio is different than your selected print size). In contrast, if the image fitting button is not depressed, Qimage will not crop any of the image. Instead, it will shrink the image so that the entire image fits in the frame selected, allowing some white border to show on the edges if necessary. It is important to note that the image fitting button located in the "Prints" group applies to both new images being added to the queue and can also be used to change the image fitting of existing prints on the page.

Note that when "Crop to Size" is turned on (scissors button depressed), you have given Qimage permission to crop some of the image to force it to fill the entire frame with image. Qimage will automatically default to cropping out the exact center of the image. If you would like to crop a different section of the image instead of accepting the default center cropping, you can double click on the image on the preview page and drag the crop area to a different location using the batch filter. Note that when you do this, however, you are creating an associative crop filter that is placed on the image itself (not the print). By manually placing a crop on the image, that portion of the image will always be cropped even if you turn off the "Crop to Size" later. This is because the associative crop filter that you just created "sticks" to the image until it is removed and from that point forward, this cropped section of the image is all that is seen by Qimage. In other words, Qimage treats the manually cropped section as the entire/only part of the image until the associative crop is removed.

Cropping to a specific aspect ratio:

If you double click on an image on the preview page in the main window, that image will be brought into the batch filter and you are ready for cropping. Note that if the image was added to the queue with "Crop to Size" on, the aspect ratio of your cropped area will default to the size of the print selected when you added the image to the queue. For example, if "Crop to Size" is on and you added a 4x6 image to the queue, when you go to the batch filter to crop that image, your crop will automatically "snap" to a 4:6 or 6:4 ratio (depending on whether you drag further left/right or up/down). This is very useful for copping images to certain aspect ratios. This "Crop lock" feature can be turned on/off by checking/unchecking the "Crop lock" box near the middle/right of the batch filter window. In addition, different aspect ratios can be entered manually by changing the values to the right of the check box. Special feature: if you clear both values next to "Crop lock" (make them blank), Qimage will use the original image aspect ratio for the crop lock!

Using the crop wizard to create a crop that will work with multiple print sizes:

Since Qimage uses the batch filter to crop images themselves rather than individual prints, only a single crop need be defined per image. If you plan to print the same image at different sizes, however (5x7 and 4x6 for example), you need to select a crop that includes the important parts of your picture when that crop is fitted to the different frame sizes. If you have a group picture of your softball team shot in landscape format, it is important that your prints do not "chop off the heads" of the people in the top row in the photo. In contrast, the amount of "leftover" space on the left and right of the group of people is often unimportant. Using the crop wizard, you can design a single crop that works for multiple print sizes by ensuring that the important parts of the picture are not cropped off. We do this by telling the wizard: (1) what print sizes we intend to use with the photo, (2) if we are cropping a portrait or landscape area out of the photo, and (3) whether the top/bottom or left/right of the picture is more important to preserve.

To create your "multi-purpose" crop using the wizard, simply add an image to the queue and then double click on that image on the small preview page to open the batch filter. Once the batch filter window opens, click the "Crop Wizard" button on the right side of the window and fill out the information. The crop wizard will select the optimum crop ratio automatically when you click the "Use the recommended crop ratio" button. Then return to the batch filter and drag/draw your crop area, making sure that the crop area includes all important areas of the image. When finished identifying the crop area, click "Done" and "OK" to associate that crop with the image.

See Example 3a in the "Learn by Example" section for detailed instructions.

Note: the sizes that appear in the crop wizard are identical to the sizes associated with the size buttons on the main window under "Prints". If you regularly use "odd" sizes, you can change the size buttons under "Prints" by right clicking on a size button that you normally don't use. You can then redefine that size. Your new size will be available from that point forward on both the size button and in the Crop Wizard.

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Curves Filter

Curves - The most common use of the curves filter is to change the contrast of different parts of an image. The following illustrates a common example for use of the levels filter.

The thumbnail above represents an image with contrast that is a bit too low (left side of image). We can use the curves filter to create a typical contrast enhancing "S" curve which will darken the shadows and brighten the highlights. Instead of a straight line from bottom left to upper right which would indicate no change, we have grabbed a point on the graph about 1/4 from the left and dragged that point downward a bit. In addition, we grabbed a point about 3/4 from the left and dragged that upward to create the above "S" curve. The difference in contrast is visible with the original on the left side of the thumbnail above, and the increased contrast on the right. Notice that the gray haze caused be low contrast has been removed from the right/filtered side of the image.

Note that up to 17 individual points can be added to define the shape of the curve, so very complex curves can be created for other purposes. To add a new point to the curve, simply click in the area on the curve to reshape and drag up/down. To move an existing point, just click on that point and reposition it up/down. To remove a point from the curve, simply right click on that point.

While the above represents a very common use of the curves filter, some very complex issues can be addressed with this filter as well since it allows adjustment of individual color channels as well as simple brightness/luminance adjustments. If you would like more information, we suggest using any Internet search tool to search for the words "image" and "curves" since there is an abundance of information available on this powerful tool.

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Cutouts

Cutouts - Use cutouts to add a "scrapbook" effect to your printouts.

When an image is printed, it is normally printed as a rectangular print like the one below.

Cutting out a portion of the image can add personality to your prints. The "Oval" cutout was used on the print below.

Cutouts can also be used as a blending effect. The "Fade-oval" cutout was used on the print below.

Access: To use cutouts, you must apply the cutout to the image(s) using the batch filter. As with all batch filters that you choose to associate with originals, you are using a mask which is placed on top of the printed image. To use a particular cutout on an image, the image must be in the queue, so it is most efficient to add all image and place them where you like on the page first. Then, to use cutouts on the images, perform the following steps:

1. Using the preview page on the top right of the main window, double click on a print to bring that print into the batch filter.

2. In the "Image Effects" box, click the dropdown box to select a cutout by name or click the "Cutout" button on the left to select a cutout by viewing thumbnails. Note: if no thumbnails appear after clicking the cutout button, click the third button at the top of the "Cutout Preview" window to regenerate the thumbnails.

3. After selecting a cutout, the screen will update to show you what the effect looks like.

4. Note that cropping and cutouts go hand-in-hand so if you crop off an area, you'll see how the cropping affects your cutout area.

5. Close the batch filter screen and apply the filter on your way out of the batch filter.

That's it. The images will remain in the selected cutouts for both display (in the slide show) and on printouts until you remove the associated filter.

The Power of Cutouts!

Note that although some cutouts are provided with Qimage, there is no limit to the cutouts that you can design yourself. Cutouts are a very powerful feature and once you understand how they are created, you can create your own designs. The section below described how to create your own cutout designs.

The simple story: Cutouts are located in your Qimage folder under a subfolder named "cutouts". If you accepted the defaults when installing Qimage, your cutouts will all be located in the "c:\program files\qimage\cutouts" folder. To add a cutout to the list of available cutouts in Qimage, you need only create an image file (in any format) and copy it to the "c:\program files\qimage\cutouts" folder.

How to create a cutout image: To create a cutout, just use your favorite image editor and create a new image in 24 bit (16 million) color format. The image can be anything you like, however, Qimage treats all shades of pure gray as a transparency level: 0,0,0 is 100% transparent and 255,255,255 is opaque and will show as white on the printout. In other words, the original image will "show through" the cutout for any pixel in your cutout that has RGB value 0,0,0. A gray shade of 128,128,128 will show your image "half faded" to white. A value of 255,255,255 in your cutout will show as white in the resulting image (none of the original image will come through). All other shades of pure gray can be used to specify how much of the original image makes it through to the result, with 0,0,0 showing the original image and 255,255,255 having the original image completely "blocked" (white). Given this, if you look at the first oval cutout above, it is no more than an all white image with a circle in the center filled with RGB color (0,0,0). Why is the image above an oval cutout and not a circle? Because the cutout is always stretched first (distorted) so that it fits over the target image exactly. This is handy because if you look at the oval cutout supplied with Qimage (which is actually a circle), the top, bottom, left and right edges always touch the edge of your photo giving you the maximum possible area inside the oval! The second, faded oval, is a cutout with 0,0,0 near the center, fading through 1,1,1, 2,2,2, 3,3,3, etc to the edges where the 255,255,255 completely masks the original image.

The obvious question at this point is, "What if I want a shade of gray to appear as part of the image (in my cutout)"? You might want to do this if, for example, you want to add some black text in the white (masked) areas outside the oval above. Just remember that Qimage will only use RGB values as transparency masks if they are exactly equal in all three RGB channels. So, if you want black text, just set the color of your text to 0,0,1 instead of 0,0,0. Seeing that the blue value is 1, Qimage will not treat the text as a mask and the true color (0,0,1) will show on the cutout rather than the underlying image. Since the difference between 0,0,0 and 0,0,1 is negligible, no one will ever be able to tell that your text has 0.4% blue, and nearly all printers will print that color as completely black. Other shades of gray can be achieved in a similar fashion, for example, middle gray could be very closely approximated by using 128,128,129 instead of 128,128,128.

Complexity: It doesn't take long to realize that you can get pretty complex with your cutouts. Just be aware when creating new cutouts that they are always stretched to fit the image and THEN stretched again to fit on the paper. For this reason, always create cutouts of high enough resolution for the application. If you create a circle cutout that is only 50 x 50 in resolution, obviously the cutout itself will look jagged when printed (but the underlying image may not). Cutout resolutions of at least 1000 x 1000 are recommended.

Creating copyright "stamps" with cutouts: Using your photo editor, simply create an image that is filled with color RGB(0,0,0). Then, in the lower right corner (or wherever you like) add text at a different color (green, yellow, black, white, etc). For example, if you regularly work with images that are 2048 x 1536 resolution, create an image that is 2048 x 1536 that is filled with the color RGB(0,0,0). Then, in the lower right corner, if you want white text that says "Copyright 2003, Your Company Inc.", simply make sure the text color is 255,255,254. Save that image in your cutouts folder and apply it to a batch of images. When applied, you will see the copyright notice where you typed it. It's that simple! And remember, although you can associate the cutout as a filter to be applied to originals, you can also (with any filter) apply the filter to create new images so that the images can be used on the web, etc. To see an example of how professional you can get with copyright stamps, try the "copyright" cutout included with Qimage. This is a copyright "sample" cutout that will show you how to create semi-transparent effects in your copyright stamps!

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Dark Frame Subtraction

Dark Frame Subtraction - Used to remove "hot pixels" or to remove color/brightness bias from frames.

The dark frame subtraction filter serves three purposes, and therefore has three options:

(1) Simple subtraction: When taking long exposure shots of say 8 seconds or more, CCD's will normally produce visible specs of light in the image called "hot pixels". These hot pixels can deter from your image. The simple subtraction method of dark frame subtraction is to subtract a reference (black except for the hot pixels) frame from your original image, thereby subtracting the bright pixels from the original image. To do this, simply take a shot at the same exposure with identical camera settings and the lens cap on the camera. For example, if you take a 16 second shot of a night scene, simply put the lens cap on the camera and take another 16 second shot with all settings identical. The result of the second image is the dark frame: the only image "data" that it will have are the hot pixels. You can then subtract that second frame from the first (which contains your image). This is a common method of removing hot pixels and it normally works well since the exact same pixels are usually "hot" in every frame if the camera settings have not been changed.

(2) Hot pixel interpolation: In very long exposures such as 30 seconds or "bulb" exposures, pixels can be so "hot" that they clip. In other words, they can be too hot to subtract with good results because the hot pixel has "topped out" at maximum brightness in at least one of the color channels (a value of 255). The simple subtraction method doesn't work well in these cases because the hot pixels have maxed out and contain NO image data at all. As a result, when you subtract these pixels from your original image, the pixels will end up black or missing the red, green and/or blue channels resulting in dark (rather than bright) specs in your image. Using hot pixel interpolation, however, you can avoid this problem since hot pixels will be identified in the dark frame and interpolated using data around the hot pixels.

(3) Frame equalization: This is a new method that is not technically related to "dark" frames. Most imaging systems have some level of frame bias due to slight vignetting, electronic interference, etc. For example, many have noticed a very slight green cast toward the left of all images using the Fuji S1 camera due to some internal electronic interference. In addition, even on the most expensive lens and camera systems, most lenses do not pass an equal amount of light in the center of the image when compared to the edges. This is a well known and normal aberration of lenses called vignetting and can be seen in images as a darkening at the edges of the picture or darkened corners. Fortunately, effects like these are normally consistent from shot to shot, at least when using similar focal lengths (zooms). Frame equalization allows you to completely remove these effects by using a single test shot to remove any color/brightness bias across the image. Note that this will NOT work to remove fringing since fringing is based on chromatic aberration and depends on image content. To use this feature, simply take a shot of a white piece of paper where the paper is evenly illuminated and covers the ENTIRE picture. Take the picture slightly out of focus and make sure that the paper is smooth with no specs or other discoloring. Use an uncompressed (TIF) mode if possible and turn camera sharpening OFF for the shot. This becomes your frame equalization reference. It is not necessary that the paper be exactly white or even that white balance is perfect, only that the shot is not over or underexposed. If the shooting conditions are as prescribed, the resulting image should be a frame of one smooth color that covers all areas of the image. In other words, the RGB values across the image should be relatively the same. You will probably notice, however, that due to inefficiencies in the camera and/or lens system, that the color is not smooth across the entire frame. The corners may be slightly darker than the center, etc. When you use the frame equalization filter, Qimage will use this reference frame to "reverse" the bias in the image to produce a smooth, evenly lit scene.

NOTE: In all three methods above, Qimage allows you to select a folder rather than a single image to subtract. If you supply a folder of images rather than an individual image to subtract, Qimage will look through the folder and select (based on EXIF information) the image that matches the closest to the original in exposure time, ISO speed, resolution, etc. Using this feature, you can create a folder of dark frames at different exposures such as 2 seconds, 4 seconds, 8 seconds, etc. This allows you to take all of your dark frames once and refer to them later without the need to take the dark frames in the field as you go.

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Bounds

Default size - identifies the default print size to be used when adding images to the queue without specifying a size (without clicking a size button).

u Since Qimage allows you to add images to the queue without specifically choosing a print size when you double click a thumbnail or drag a thumbnail to the preview page, it must have a default size for those images. The default size is the last size used when adding images to the queue and is listed above the thumbnails as a blue text link. If you would like to change the default size that is "assumed" for double click and drag operations, simply click the blue size link above the thumbnails and then choose a different size in the "Prints" area under the preview page. Since you can click thumbnails and simply press a size button when using different sizes, it is not normally necessary to change the default size manually, but you can if a special case arises.

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Delete Filters

Delete Filters - Qimage now offers a quick way to remove associative filters and revert to the original image. To quickly remove associative filters from images, simply add the image(s) to the queue. Next, select the image(s) in the queue for which you would like to remove filters, right click in the queue and select "Delete Filters". The same selection/right click method will also work from the preview page.

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Page Editor Functions - listing

Page Editor Functions

All - apply selected bounds to all images in the queue (document).

Bounds - size of the selected print(s). See "Defaults" under main screen functions for more info.

Click/Drag - click and drag any corner of the selected image to resize the image visually.  Click and drag the center of the image to move the image visually (will set image positioning to "Freehand" mode automatically).

Details - click details to view embedded image information such as shutter speed, flash, zoom, etc.

Go To - select a page and the page editor will display that page.

Print Page - click this button to print only the page being viewed. Return to the main menu if you would like to print the entire document.

Selected - apply the selected bounds to the highlighted image only.

Swap - rotate the "picture frame" (bounds) 90 degrees. The effect of this function depends on the "Image Fitting" function (see main screen functions).

View - select the level of detail desired on the page preview.

u Select "Templates Only" to show only the name, position and orientation of each image on the page (fastest).

Select "Selected Image" if you wish to show the actual image only for the highlighted image.

Select "Cached/Small Images" to load images only if they can be loaded quickly.

Select "All Images" to view all images on the page (slowest). The "All Images" option will show you exactly what your printout will look like.

See the main screen functions for document options.

Right Click - right click on the page to activate a list of functions that apply to the selected image on the page, including text annotations, copy/cut/paste, etc.

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EXIF Hotbar

EXIF Hotbar - The EXIF hotbar automatically shows image information on the lower status bar of the main screen as you pass the mouse pointer over images. This allows you to quickly examine f-stop, shutter speed, etc. instantly. Note: if you have images that are corrupted or unreadable, you may want to turn this feature off so that Qimage does not try to examine each file as you pass the mouse pointer over the thumbnails. To turn the EXIF Hotbar on/off, click "View", "Interface", "EXIF Hotbar" from the main screen.

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EXIF and other image information

EXIF and other image information - Any embedded image information (exposure info, f-stop, etc) can be displayed in the following ways:

u If "EXIF Hotbar" is turned on, the most useful information is shown on the bottom status bar as you pass the mouse pointer over each thumbnail.

u From the thumbnail view on the main screen, right click on a thumbnail. When the popup menu appears, select "View image info". Ctrl-I can also be used with the mouse over a specific thumbnail.

u From the slide show (click "Queue", "Slide Show" from the top menu bar), press the "Details" button in the upper right. Image information will be displayed for the image currently being viewed.

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Exposure Correction

Exposure Compensation - This filter brightens underexposed images by expanding the dynamic range of the image.

To access these filters, add the images to the queue first and then click "Queue", "Batch Filter" from the top menu bar. Check the appropriate box(es) and click "File" and "Save Filtered Image(s)" from the top menubar and click "Ok".

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The file dropdown

File - offers two options for saving/loading Qimage saved information. Settings describe all parameters of your image document (page orientation, default size and fit, etc.). If you have several different sets of settings that you like to use, simply select "File" then "Save Current SETTINGS" from the menubar at the top of the screen. All parameters that describe how the image document is formatted will be saved. You can load the settings in the future any time you wish. You may also load/save sessions. A session describes everything about a document including the images in the queue! When you have formatted your document and added images of your choice, you may click "File" and "Save SESSION" from the menubar and later retrieve the session to restore document layout and all images in the queue.

Note that if you have created a document with blank templates and you wish to save the template, you must "Save Current SESSION". After the session is saved, you can "Load SESSION" in the future and you will be able to drag images and drop them onto the predefined templates.

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Filters - Managing Associated Image Filters

Filters (Managing Associative Filters) - Methods for managing the filters that you have associated with images.

Qimage offers a number of methods to help identify which images have associated filters, view/edit/modify those filters, and remove filters associations.

u What are associative filters - An associative filter is nothing more than a small file that describes a set of actions to be performed on an image every time the image is opened. Instead of creating new images every time we want to filter our originals, we can simply create this set of actions so that every time Qimage displays or prints the image, the same set of actions is performed on the image. This associative filtering has a number of important benefits: (1) You can change the appearance of your original without using space to store a second copy of the image, (2) You maintain the integrity of your original image since the image itself is not modified, (3) You can open the filter actions at any time and view what those actions are, changing them as you like, i.e. you don't lose sight of what you did to the image, and finally (4) if you would like to save your images that have associative filters as another (filtered) copy so that other imaging applications can "see" the changes, you can do that as well. Note that since associative filters describe a set of actions in a file that is separate from the original image, other photo software will only see the original (they won't know how to associate the filters). Qimage, however, will treat an image with an associative filter just like an original. In other words, you never have to worry about "applying" the filter when you view or print the images because Qimage knows to do that with every image operation.

u Locating associative filters - When the interface is set to show thumbnails (rather than only file names), Qimage will display the file name under each thumbnail in red if there is a filter associated with that image. When scrolling through a folder and viewing thumbnails, if the file name under the thumbnail is black, there is no filter associated with that image. If the name is red, however, the image displayed directly above that red file name has a filter associated with it.

u Removing associative filters - A red file name in the thumbnail view indicates that the image has an associated filter that is affecting the appearance of that image whenever Qimage displays or prints that image. This associative filter is nothing more than a small file that describes a set of actions to be performed on that image every time the image is opened. Deleting the filter file that corresponds to an image will remove this set of actions and therefore restore the appearance of the image. To do this, simply select one or more thumbnails in the thumbnail view and right click in the thumbnail area and select "Delete Associative Filter(s)". Then, simply select "Delete Entire Filter" from the menu.

u Adding a new associative filter or changing existing filters - There are two ways to associate filter actions to your images. You can add multiple images to the queue and then click "Queue" from the top menu bar and "Batch Filter". This method opens the batch filter window which allows you to "scroll through" the images in the queue one by one, associating filter actions as you go (or applying the same set of actions to all the images in the queue at once). If you don't want/need to add the images to the queue to filter them, you don't need to. Simply select the thumbnail(s) that you would like to filter and right click in the thumbnail area and select "Create Associative Filter" or "Apply Predefined Filter".

u Creating new filtered images instead of associating filter actions with originals - Note that you must add images to the queue and use "Queue", "Batch Filter" to save filtered images to new files. You can only associate filter actions with originals from the thumbnail area. If you would like to create new images from your filtered images, those images must be added to the queue and the "Batch Filter" used for this purpose.

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Flash Card Copy/Move

Flash Card Copy/Move - This function transfers images from your camera's memory card to your PC's hard drive (or other drive location).

The "Flash Card Copy/Move" function is designed to be used with flash card readers that allow you to access your digital camera's memory card as a drive letter on your PC (for example, the E: or F: drive). This function cannot be used if you transfer images directly from your camera without a flash card reader unless your camera shows up as a physical drive letter on your PC.

To transfer images using a card reader:

u Simply start Qimage and then insert your memory card into your card reader.

u The "Flash Card Copy/Move" window should pop up automatically as Qimage detects that a flash card has been inserted.

u If the "Flash Card Copy/Move" window does not appear, your card reader is not notifying the operating system when a card is inserted. In this case, simply click "File", "Flash Card Copy/Move" in Qimage to open the window manually.

u If "Flash card and image folder auto detection" is checked, Qimage should be able to find your flash card and will automatically fill in the "FROM folder" box.

u Next, click the browse "..." button next to the "TO folder" and select a location on your hard drive to store the images.

u Click "Copy" to copy images from the flash card to your hard drive (leaving the originals on the flash card) or click "Move" to move the images to your hard drive while deleting the files from (clearing) the flash card.

u At this point, if an error message appears indicating that the FROM folder is invalid, Qimage was unable to locate the images on your flash card automatically. In this case, you will need to click the browse "..." button next to the "FROM" folder, locate the image folder on your flash card manually, and repeat the copy/move.

Notes:

If "Auto Rename" is checked, Qimage will rename images as they are copied/moved so that resulting names are more informative. Since the default renaming parameters choose date/time for the file name, an image such as IMG00056.jpg on the memory card might be renamed to 2003-05-07 13:31:56.jpg. If you do not wish to rename files as they are copied/moved, simply uncheck the "Auto Rename" option.

If you would like to copy/move all files from your flash card to another location, make sure that *.* appears in the "Copy/Move Files Like" parameter. If you only want Qimage to move files with a JPG extension, enter *.jpg in the "Copy/Move Files Like" parameter. Etc.

After the copy/move operation, Qimage will automatically browse to the "TO folder" that contains the copied/moved images and will display thumbnails for those images if "Browse the TO folder after copy/move" is checked. If you would like Qimage to remain in the current folder after the copy/move, simply uncheck this box.

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Folder History

Folder History - Allows you to quickly navigate to any of the last 16 folders used in Qimage. To access the folder history, simply drop down the combo box located just above the "Select Folder" button in the "Folder" panel above the thumbnails. Note that you may add/remove folders from this list manually by first selecting the folder so that it is the current folder selected in the history drop down, and then right click in the drop down box to add/remove that folder from the history list.

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Freehand operation

Notes on Freehand placement of images on the page

To gain maximum control over the printed page, you may select "Freehand" placement at any time.  The Freehand option "unlocks" the positioning on every image in your document so that they may be placed (dragged) manually.  The most efficient means for manually placing images in a (large) document is to first set the image positioning option to "Center".  You can then add as many images at any size(s) you like.  The document will be created with images centered within the printer's "printable area" on the page.  You can then "switch" to manual by selecting freehand mode and "tweak" the locations/sizes any way you like.  The simplest steps to perform this are the following.

u Select "Page", "Image Placement" and "Center" from the top menu bar.

u Select size(s) and add the images to the queue.

u Click "Page", "Edit Page" from the top menu bar to open the page editor and drag to place and/or size the images.  To do this, after the page editor opens, simply select the image you would like to move by left clicking on that image. Then you can drag from anywhere in the center part of the image to move the image around on the page.  You may also drag to size the image in the typical fashion using the corners of the image.

Although the above is the simplest method, Qimage offers other features as well.  For example, you can select the "Freehand" positioning option before adding images.  You can then drag images from the thumbnail display directly to the location you want on the small preview page to the right.  The image(s) will be dropped so that the upper left corner is located at the mouse pointer.

Moving and sizing in freehand mode:

While prints can be moved/resized by clicking and dragging with the mouse, you may also select a print on the page and manually enter a new size in the size boxes on the right of the window to specify exact sizes. In addition, you may select an exact location for your print on the page by changing the location values under "Location" on the right of the window. For example, if you would like the image to be located 2 inches from the top of the paper, enter a "2" in the top location box. If you want that image to be 3 inches from the right edge of the paper, simply enter a "3" in the right location box. You may also "nudge" the prints by first selecting the print and then using the arrow keys to nudge the print left/right/up/down. Finally, to "snap" any print to the nearest 1/10 inch, simply right click on that print and select "Snap to grid".

The following is a summary of functions that apply to "Freehand" operation:

u Add - to add images to the page while in freehand mode, simply go to the page in question and drag the image from the thumbnails viewer directly to the page.  Note that the image will be dropped at the mouse pointer.  If you want to move the image after initial placement, you must click the "Edit" button since the preview page on the main screen is "write once" and is really meant for the rough draft.

u Add a new page - to create a new page while in freehand mode, simply click the right arrow under the page preview until you reach the last page, or drop the page list down and select the last page.  The next time you click the right arrow, Qimage will ask you if you would like to create a new page.

u "Bring to front" - using freehand mode allows you to place images (all or partly) on top of other images.  An image's position in the queue is what causes it to be "in front of" or "behind" other images.  The easiest way to think of this is that images are placed on the page in the order that they appear in the queue.  Images that are later in the queue will be placed on top of earlier images.  You can use the cut/paste option in the editor to cut an image and replace it in the queue "before" or "after" any other image.  When you paste the image, the paste operation remembers exactly where the image was when you cut it, and will place it back in the same location.  This makes it easier to change the overlap without changing the location on the page.

u Switching to freehand mode - There are two ways to switch from center, compact, etc. directly to freehand mode.  One way is to click "Page", "Image Placement" on the top menu bar of the main window and select "Freehand".  The other is to drag an image while in the page editor.  Dragging the image will automatically prompt you to go to freehand mode (unless you are already in freehand mode).  Note that when you switch from any of the automatic modes to "Freehand", your images will stay at the same locations until you change them.

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Fringing Filter

Fringing Filter - This filter removes or drastically reduces green/purple color fringing found in many 2.0+ MP digital cameras. The filter is designed to remove chromatic abberation of lenses, normally seen as a green or purple fringe around objects near the edge of photos. This filter will work well on most fringing, however, it is not designed to remove purple "halos" caused by intense light or overexposure (highlight blowouts).

To access the fringing filter, add the images to the queue first and then click "Queue", "Batch Filter" from the top menu bar. Check the box for "Fringing" under "Auto Correct" and click "File" and "Save Filtered Image(s)" from the top menubar and click "Ok".

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Full Screen View

Full Screen View - Right click on a thumbnail in the thumbnail view. When the popup menu appears, select "Display Full Screen". Note that this option displays only the thumbnail under the mouse pointer (to view multiple images full screen, use the slide show). Pressing the space bar while holding the mouse over a thumbnail will perform the same function.

Note: to return to the main window, simply press the Esc key.

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Global Filter

Global Filter - Qimage filters can be set as "global filters" without associating the filter with images. If you set a filter as a global filter, all images loaded by Qimage will be filtered automatically by the global filter. For example, you might have a lot of dark images taken without flash. You could set the exposure correction filter globally and all images will pass through the filter prior to all display operations AND prior to all print operations.

To set a global filter - Add at least one image to the queue so that you can access the batch filters. Click "Queue", "Batch Filter" from the top menu bar. Set up your filter any way you like and click "File" and "Save Filtered Images" on the top menu bar, and then click the "Global Filter" radio button and click "Ok". Your global filter is now set. Any and all images accessed will pass through this filter. Important: individually assigned filters override the global filter, so if you have images that have filters associated with the individual image file, the individual filter will override the global filter. To remove filters associated with individual files, just add the file(s) to the queue, select all the images in the queue and then right click in the queue and select "Delete Filters".

To remove the global filter - Simply click "Settings", "Global Filter" from the top menubar and uncheck the global filter option. Rechecking this option later will restore the last global filter set. The global filter is located in program files\qimage\{q}global.flt. You can also check/uncheck the "G.Filter" box located near the bottom right of the main window to turn on/off the global filter.

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Image Fitting

Image Fitting: Depending on the resolution of your images (whether scanned or from a digital camera), your images may not fit into "common" frame sizes like 5 x 7 because the aspect ratio of your images is different from that of the frame. For example, a 1600 x 1200 resolution image has an aspect ratio of 4:3. Since a 7 x 5 picture frame has a different ratio, namely 7:5, your 4:3 image must be modified in one of two ways so that it fits in a 7 x 5 frame. Qimage supports both of the following methods for sizing/fitting images:

1. One way to fit a 4:3 image into a 7:5 frame is to reduce the 4:3 image in size so that the entire image fits into the frame. Using this "Fit in Frame" method will result in an image that is 6.67 inches wide by 5 inches tall. If mounted in a frame, there would be a small amount of "white space" on the 7 inch side of the frame, but you would be able to see the entire image. "Fit in Frame" fitting is accomplished by ensuring that the scissors icon in the "Prints" area is up.

2. The second way to fit a 4:3 image into a 7:5 frame is to crop a small amount of image off the top and bottom of the 4:3 image to make it a 7:5 aspect ratio. Using this method, you will actually get a print that is exactly 7 inches by 5 inches, but a small amount of your 4:3 image must be cropped (omitted from the picture) to do this. Qimage defaults to cropping out the center of an image when using the "Crop to Size" method, but you can change the crop area if you like since cropping the center of an image may not always be desirable. "Crop to Size" fitting is accomplished by ensuring that the scissors icon in the "Prints" area is down.

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Image Lock

Image Lock: Turning on the image lock (lock button near the preview page) will ensure that images appear in their original orientation (the orientation shown in the thumbnail area). The prints will not be rotated unless rotation is unavoidable due to the fact that the image is too big to fit on a page in its original orientation. For example, if you add a portrait thumbnail to the queue at a size of 8x10 and you are using a landscape 10x8 paper orientation, the only way to fit the image on the page is to rotate it, so in this case, Qimage will override the lock. Note that for the image lock to be effective, the lock button must be depressed before adding images to the queue. Turning the image lock on (locked icon) can be useful if you do not plan to cut your images from the page but would rather all your image appear upright on the page. As a general rule, if you normally cut your prints off the page, leave the image lock icon unlocked. If you do not plan to cut the prints from the page, but prefer to simply insert printed pages into an album, it may be better to lock your images so that they get added to the printout in their original (upright) orientation and do not get rotated to fit the size you selected.

Note: This option is disabled is "Optimal" image placement is selected.

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Image Positioning option

Image Placement - defines how the images are paginated (placed) on each page.

Optimal - Optimal image placement is the default when you first start Qimage. It ensures that the least amount of paper is used by taking control of the orientation (portrait/landscape) of prints and filling "gaps" on each page. Use this option if paper usage is more important than the order and orientation in which images are printed. It is best to use the Sort Prints button just before printing so that prints will be collated and will be easier to cut from the printed page.

Compact - use the compact option to fit all images as close together as possible in the upper left corner of the document. This option is useful if you want to use the absolute minimum amount of paper so that the unused portions may be used later.

Center - the center option will result in the same number of images per page as the compact option, except the images will be centered on the page and spaced apart so that images do not look crowded. This option is most useful for creating picture albums. For an understanding of the different centering methods (physical centering on the page and centering within the printer's printable area), see the Margins help page.

Manual - the manual option allows you to enter a position (upper left corner) on the page for each image to print. Note that since you are identifying a location on the page, only one image will print per page. This option can be useful for locating an image over other (non-blank) media such as greeting cards, etc.

Template - the template option places each image at a predefined location on the page (grid). The template option is an extremely powerful option as it has many uses. The template that is used is the template currently showing on the main screen under "Sample Page". For this reason, the flexibility exists to select bounds that are different in size from the template. Each image is placed at the next available template location (upper left). If an image takes up more than one template location, the template locations "partially occupied" by the image are unusable. For example, if you select 6 x 4 bounds and later change the bounds to 3 x 2, the working template will change to 3 x 2. The 6 x 4 images will then occupy four positions in the template (2 along the width and 2 along the height). Note that now, however, you have the flexibility of filling the remaining (unused) 3 x 2 positions on the page with any size images you like. For example, you could fill the remaining positions with 3 x 2 images, filling all remaining positions on the page. As you can see, adding images at one size while using a template of a different size (especially when you use exact multiples of sizes at 2x, 3x, etc) allows the flexibility to place many images on a page while still retaining alignment for perfect cutting (images will be aligned by the left edge by nature of this algorithm).

Freehand - Allows total control over where images are placed on the page.  In this mode, you MUST take manual control and place all images on the page yourself.  You can start with one of the other (automatic) options and switch to freehand placement later to "tweak" your printout manually.  See the Freehand option for more details.

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Info Stamp

Info Stamp - Stamps selected information directly on image(s). Choose from a variety of general info or EXIF info. Simply select the information that you want stamped on the image(s), the location of the info, and the font attributes and Qimage will stamp this information directly on the image. As with all other filters, the info stamp can be "stuck to" the image in an associative way so that the original is untouched or you can create new versions with the stamped information added in directly in the image.

To access info stamp, add the images to the queue first and then click "Queue", "Batch Filter" from the top menu bar. The "Info Stamp" checkbox is located in the batch filter under "Image Effects". When you check the info stamp checkbox, more options will appear. When finished, simply close the batch filter or click "File", "Save Filteres Image(s)" from the top menubar and click "Ok".

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Interface options

Interface - Accessed via "View", "Interface" on the main window, this option allows the user total control over how he/she would like to view/select images. You can work with only filenames when you don't need the overhead of thumbnails (after editing, etc.) or you can enjoy the flexibility of seeing exactly what is available.

u Filenames only - print entire directories without ever having to wait for images to load.

u Thumbnails - Get an instant list of all files while the images load in the background. Be aware that thumbnails are stored in the same directory as the source images. The thumbnails will remain on the drive so that they only have to be built once.

u Save thumbs - Check this box to save thumbnails on the hard drive for future reference. If this box is not checked, you can still work with thumbnails, but they will not be saved for quick loading in the future.

u Refresh thumbs - Click to refresh (regenerate) the thumbnails. This is handy if you have edited photos and need to refresh the thumbnails.

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Levels Filter

Levels - The most common use of the levels filter is to redefine black and white points in an image to correct under or overexposure. The levels filter can be used to redefine minimum and maximum brightness for the luminance channel (RGB), or individual color channels separately. The following illustrates a common example for use of the levels filter.

The thumbnail above represents an image that has been underexposed (left part of image) due to light entering a stained glass window in the background. The histogram on the right shows that the brightness of pixels in the photograph is well distributed from dark to bright, however, the camera metered the scene too dark for our main subjects due to the bright window. Since we do not care about detail in the stained glass window as it is not our main subject, we can use the levels filter to expose the image properly for our main subject. Looking at the histogram, the peak in the graph on the right side is caused by bright pixels in the window, so we slide the highlight (top) slider to the left until we reach the next peak in the graph which in this case represents the white shirt. Moving the highlight slider to this location redefines the shirt as the brightest object in the photo while maintaining detail in that area. Since we have "clipped" the right part of the graph, note that some detail in the bright window will be lost as a result. The difference can be seen in the thumbnail (left side underexposed, right side exposed to retain detail in the white shirt). Note that we could go even further if we are not particularly interested in detail captured in the white shirt, and expose more for the faces in the photo by continuing to drag the highlight slider further to the left. In addition to brightening the highlights in an image, we can also darken the shadows by sliding the shadow (bottom) slider to the right in a similar fashion. The middle slider is the midtone/gamma slider and is used less often. The midtone slider changes the shape of the brightness curve to achieve a non-linear brightening/darkening effect. We would use the midtone slider to bring more detail out in the shadows without affecting the highlights for example.

While the above represents a very common use of the levels filter, some very complex issues can be addressed with this filter as well since it allows adjustment of individual color channels as well as simple brightness/luminance adjustments. It is possible to remove color casts or change the overall tone of the image for example. If you would like more information, we suggest using any Internet search tool to search for the words "image" and "levels" since there is an abundance of information available on this powerful tool.

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Lossless JPEG Transformations

Lossless JPEG Transformations - You can apply transformations to JPEG format files without any loss of image quality. To perform lossless transformations, add the image(s) to the queue and then click "Queue", "Batch Filter" from the top menu bar. When the batch filter screen appears, simply click "Lossles JPEG Xforms" from the top menubar. Select the appropriate transform from the drop down menu and you will be prompted to overwrite the originals or create new images. Click "Ok" after selecting "Create New Images" or "Overwrite images" and the new JPEG images will be saved.

Note: EXIF information is also preserved after a JPEG transformation.

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Margins

Margins - to select new margins for the printed page, click "Page", "Margins" from the main menu. Note that when you have non-zero margins, you are actually using printable area of the page and reducing your maximum print size by the amount shown in margins.

Using margins to control image centering in Qimage

1. Centering prints within the printable area of the page (all margins set to zero): If all page margins are set to zero, Qimage will center images within the printable area on the page; that is, the printable area defined by your printer and print driver settings. The printable area of the page is defined as the area of the paper that your printer is physically capable of printing on. Since the area of the page that the printer can physically access is rarely centered, you would select this option if you want to center images within the printer's limitations, but don't particularly care whether the prints are centered on the entire page. Since this form of centering makes use of the entire area that the printer is capable of using, this is the best option to use if you plan to cut your photos from the page, trim the page, or if maximum utilization of space is a concern. In those cases, it is probably not important to ensure that prints appear to be centered over the entire sheet of paper. The figure below shows a page for a printer that has a default printable area (in white) that is off center (shifted toward the top of the page). Notice that the print is centered within the white printable area and is not centered on the page itself.

2. Centering prints on the physical/printed page: In contrast to the above option which allows you to use the full printing area of your printer while centering images within that area, you can also center images on the physical page so that prints appear centered on the paper when they come out of the printer. Qimage accomplishes this "absolute" centering by using margins to compensate for your printer's off-center printable area. You would use this option when it is important for photos to appear to be centered on the entire sheet of paper. For example, if you intend to slip an entire 8.5 x 11 page into a sheet protector and display it in a photo album, you may wish to ensure that prints appear to be centered on the entire page. To print a 4-up sheet of centered prints for a photo album for example, you would click "Page", "Margins", and use the "Center on Physical Page" button. Then, enter "2x" in both size boxes above the thumbnails and click "OK" to split your page into 2x2. Add four images to the queue and print. Those 4 images will be exactly centered on the page.
Note that by definition, forcing images to appear on the center of the physical page means that you will lose some printable area due to the fact that some of the area that was used before (in option 1 above) is now used as a non-printable area (margin). This reduction in printable area means that you will be reducing the size of the largest print possible, and you may also be reducing the number of images that fit on a page (such as ability to print three 4x6 prints on a page).

A note about physical centering of prints and print driver settings:

Note that many printers offer the ability to set up your paper for borderless prints, or prints with "no margins". If you find that the size of the largest possible print has reduced when you use the second option above, or that you have lost the ability to print a certain number of prints on a page, you can often modify the printable area using "File", "Printer Setup" to achieve larger print areas by selecting "borderless", "no margins", or "maximum" printable area. Pay attention to warnings generated by the print driver when modifying printable area, however, because print quality can begin to decline when making changes to the printable area. An example of the effect of the above two centering options on print size would be the following. Suppose you were able to print an 8 x 10 under option 1 above, but using option 2, the largest print size possible is 8 x 9.9. Instead of sacrificing print quality by setting your printer to borderless mode, you may just wish to reduce the size of your print from 8 x 10 to 8 x 9.9 so that it will fit on the page and allow physical centering. Again, note that the reduced print size available to you when physically centering prints is a limitation of the printer, not a limitation of Qimage.

Manually forcing a print to the center of the page in "Freehand" placement mode:

Instead of using margins to force all prints to the center of all pages, you may wish to force an individual print to the center of the physical page. To do this, open the page editor using "Page", "Edit Page", select the print, and then click the "Center" button on the right side of the window under the "Location" group. Use of this "Center" button will force the selected print to the center of the page (if possible) but will not affect placement of other images in the queue.

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Hairline Border

Hairline Border - To print a thin black hairline border around all printed images, turn this option on by checking the "Mark Edges" box located near the bottom right of the main window.

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Mirror -

Mirror - The mirror option can be used to mirror images for the purpose of printing transfers for tee-shirts, etc. To mirror an image, first add the images to the queue and then click "Queue", "Batch Filter" from the top menu bar. Check the "Mirror" box and click "Files" and "Save Filtered Image(s)" from the top menubar and click "Ok".

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Optimizing Space

Optimizing Space - If placement is set to "Optimal", Qimage will always make the best use of space on the paper. In "Optimal" mode, for example, Qimage will always be able to fit three 4x6 prints on a page that is at least 8x10 in size, whether the page is set up in portrait or landscape mode. This is because the "Optimal" placement setting is designed to make the best use of paper regardless with no emphasis on how prints are arranged on the page. Note that when using "Optimal" placement, Qimage will not fill gaps by rearranging the order of prints in the queue unless you tell it to. For example, it will not fill a 3x2 "hole" on page one by moving a 3x2 print from page 4 unless the Sort Prints button is pressed. The Sort Prints function will not only fill gaps in the printout by moving images in the queue, but it will also collate prints from largest to smallest size, making cutting prints from the page much easier.

In all other placement modes (other than "Optimal"), Qimage paginates images into rows so that they can easily be cut with paper cutters (never requiring partial "swipes" of the blade), you may find that the order and/or sizes in which you inserted images in the queue doesn't always make the most of the space available on the page because Qimage is (1) trying to retain the order in which the images were added to the queue and (2) trying to avoid "random" placement of images onto the page to "fill holes". In other placement modes such as "Center" or "Compact", Qimage may not place three 4x6 prints on a page unless you specify a portrait size (4x6 and not 6x4) and you use a portrait page. In all automatic placement modes other than "Optimal" placement, images are arranged in "unbroken" rows such that each row can be cut straight across the page without intersecting other prints.

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Page Editor command

Page Editor - use the page editor to preview your document prior to printing and to make any manual adjustments necessary.  The page editor will always go to the same page displayed at the top of the main screen in the small preview box.  The page editor also allows drag and size of all images, text annotations, etc.  Access the page editor by selecting "Page", "Edit Page" from the top menu bar.

Customizing Printouts

Original (centered)                            Drag to customize                                   Drag to size

Although Qimage has many options for automatic control of your printouts, there may be times when you simply want to place pictures manually on the page (see the "Freehand" option for details).  This can easily be accomplished using the page editor.  From the page editor screen you can visually drag all images to any location on the page.  All images can be moved manually by pointing in the center section of the selected image and dragging to the desired location.  Images may even overlap as they do above.  Dragging to change the size of the image can be performed in a similar fashion by pointing to one of the corners of the image and dragging to the desired size (right page above).

Additional (non-visual) commands

In addition to the visual placement/sizing of images, there are a number of options available by right clicking on an image.  Options such as cut, paste, etc. allow you to remove images, change the location of an image in the queue, etc.  Location in the queue is also important for overlapping images.  For example, the middle page above shows the car in front of the cat.  This is because the car image appears later in the queue than the cat (later images are placed on top of prior images).  To bring the cat to the front, simply click the right mouse button on the cat and select "cut" to remove the cat.  Then right click on the car and select "paste after" to paste the cat after the car.  The cat will reappear in it's old location but will now be on top of both of the other images due to it's position in the queue.

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Page orientation option

Page Orientation - defines whether the document is being viewed/printed in landscape or portrait format.

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Page Preview - defined

Page Preview - The small preview page in the upper right corner can be used for adding/deleting images on the page and to change the size and fit of prints. You may select one or more prints on the page by clicking on them, and then change the parameters in the "Prints" group, or right click on the page for other options. Remember that for more complex/visual resizing and manual placement, you should use the page editor (click "Page", "Edit Page" from the top menu bar or directly on the right click menu from the preview page). There are many other detailed editing capabilities available in the page editor, including manual placement, text annotations, etc.

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Changing Page/Paper Size

Changing Paper Size - Qimage uses the paper size as defined by your print driver. Simply click "Page", "Page/Printer Setup" and then click "Properties" to change the paper size associated with your printer. Once you change the paper size in your print driver and return to Qimage, the new paper size will be recognized automatically.

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Photo Editors

Using a Photo Editor with Qimage - Although Qimage offers a host of "quick fixes" for your images, there may be times that you need to use a full featured editor to correct images, such as when cloning of large areas is needed, etc. Qimage can work in conjunction with your photo editor. Click "Utilities", "File Manager/Photo Editor Setup" and then click the "..." selection button next to "Photo Editor". You can then browse and select the photo editor to use with Qimage by selecting the executable file (normally an EXE extension) from your photo editor's folder. Once you have done this initial setup, you should not have to repeat it again. You can then click on any thumbnail(s) and then right click and select "Edit Image(s) w/editor". This will bring the selected image(s) into your photo editor for manipulation.

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Qimage Plugins

Qimage Plugins - Qimage plugins can be obtained from the Qimage Plugin Center at http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/plugins. When you purchase a plugin, you will be supplied with a small file via email which you copy to your c:\program files\qimage\plugins folder. Once you drop the ".plg" file into that folder, the plugin will be accessible via the batch filter. You can then add images to the queue and filter one/all via the batch filter by dropping down the plugin filter box and selecting your plugin.

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Preview First option

Preview - To preview a selection of thumbnails prior to adding them to the queue, simply select multiple thumbnails from the thumbnail window (or filenames from the file listing if you have thumbnails turned off) and then click the "Preview Selected" button above the thumbnails. The thumbnails/files you have selected will be previewed one at a time. Simply click the appropriate size button(s) under the "Prints" group on the right of the window to add prints as you preview. You can cancel the preview at any time by simply clicking the small "x" in the upper right corner of the preview window to close the window.

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Print Image/File Info

Print Image/File Information - check this box (called "Img Info" on the bottom of the main window) to include file name, creation date, resolution, etc. in small text below each image. This option is useful for cataloging images and is located near the bottom right of the main window.

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Print Interpolation -

Print interpolation and spooling options - Access these functions by clicking "Prints", "Print Interpolation" from the top menu on the main window.

Interpolation - If an image is printed too large for the given image resolution (such as a 640x480 image printed at 8x10 inches), it can become blocky. To increase resolution, you can use one of the seven included interpolation types below. To access Qimage interpolation options, select "Prints" in the top menubar of the main screen, and then select "Print Interpolation".

Increasing resolution of printouts - To increase resolution of prints while not affecting original images, simply set the interpolation type and the interpolation level (none through max). Qimage will automatically increase printed resolution for you so that you never have to worry about DPI or resampling originals. Note that an interpolation setting of "Vector" and "Max" produces incredibly detailed prints of the highest quality but may take a bit longer to spool data to your printer. An interpolation setting (bottom of window) of "None" can be useful for printing screen shots and graphs where you may not want interpolation at all.

Increasing resolution of an existing image - Most of the time, you will probably only want to increase resolution of prints, however, you may also want to decrease resolution of images for web pages or increase resolution of images to increase image quality. To increase resolution of an existing image, add the image(s) to the queue and then click "Queue", "Batch Filter" from the top menu bar of the main window. You may then change the resolution of the images in the queue by changing the values in the "Resolution" box on the bottom of the filter panel. The images may be resaved or the "filter" may be associated with the original file so that the image is resized prior to each operation in Qimage, however, not that the latter doesn't really make much sense since you almost never want to reduce resolution of an image unless you are preparing it for another medium such as the web, in which case you would want to create new images and not associate a filter with them. Note that if you apply the resolution to all images in the queue and all images are NOT the same resolution, all images will be changed by the same percentage based on original versus new resolution.

Interpolation Types:

u Vector - Offers very smooth edges, good sharpness, and low noise. As fast as Lanczos with less noise/artifacts and better edges.

u Lanczos - A little sharper than vector interpolation, but at the expense of more noise and more jagged edges.

u Hermite - While faster than vector or Lanczos interpolation, Hermite is not as sharp and also has more noticeable jagged edges.

u Mitchell - Good sharpness and detail, but not as capable of eliminating jaggies as some of the other interpolation schemes.

u Bicubic Spline - Produces smooth edges but also produces results that look soft.

u Triangle - Offers a good balance between calculation speed and quality, but leaves some jagged edges behind.

u Bell - Relatively fast, but produces a soft image.

u Pixel Resize - Simply stretches the image to the new size. This is the fastest option but has the least smoothing.

Print spooling - Qimage offers the ability to control how data is sent to your operating system/print driver. You should always run Qimage in the "All Pages at Once" mode unless you are having trouble with crashes, lockups, or missing prints. Qimage sends more data to your printer than most other software programs due to its high quality printing algorithms. If your system runs out of spool space or has other problems with large jobs, try the "Spool one page at a time" or "Spool with time delay" option so that Qimage will pause after each page. The three print spooling options are listed below.

u Spool all pages at once: Data is sent from Qimage to the print driver as a continuous stream with no interruptions. On most systems/drivers/printers, this option is best because it allows Qimage to finish preparing the print job faster and allows your operating system and print driver to handle the data in the background. This is the only method available in most other printing applications.

u Spool one page at a time: Qimage processes one page of print(s) and sends that data to the print driver. Once the page has been sent, Qimage will wait for a signal from the operating system that indicates that the printer has finished printing that page and has returned to an "idle" state. Once the operating system signals that the printer has completed the page, Qimage will send the second page, and will repeat this wait/send sequence at the end of each page. Note that if you are using Windows NT, 2000, or XP, your operating system may not be set up to broadcast the needed information back to Windows programs, causing Qimage to wait indefinitely between pages. If this occurs, see the help/fix tip in the Troubleshooting section.

u Spool with time delay: Qimage processes one page of print(s) and sends that data to the print driver. Once the page has been sent, Qimage will wait the specified length of time before processing the next page. This time delay will be repeated between each printed page. This option can be useful when printing on a network or when conditions exist where communications between the operating system and the printer are severed or not available. In cases where bidirectional communications do not exist, the time delay between pages can give the printer enough time to "catch up" with the data stream and may alleviate problems caused by spooler overruns, print queue limits, etc. To determine the appropriate time delay, you may wish to create a single page of [typical] prints and print that page, recording the time elapsed between Qimage's "Finished Processing" message to the time when the printer has completed printing the page. Note that you may also wish to add a few extra seconds for "insurance", especially if you plan to continue using your PC for other tasks while printing.

Network printing note: If you are printing to a network printer, "Spool all pages at once" will result in a single print job that contains all pages of your document. If your network print queue has a size limit (per job), it may be useful to send each printed page as a separate print job. This can be done by using "Spool with time delay" and setting the time delay to zero. Under those settings, there will be no time delay between pages, however, each page will be sent to the network queue as a separate print job, which may alleviate queue size limitations if a per-job size limit is in place.

Final Print Sharpening - Qimage offers the ability to apply different levels of unsharp mask to the final print. This unsharp mask is applied after all interpolation has been performed (after your print has been resampled to the DPI of your printer). Since this setting affects the sharpness of your prints, a setting should be used that makes your final prints match what is displayed on your monitor with respect to sharpness. The type of printer used and the print driver version can affect apparent sharpness of prints. It is best to leave this setting at the default slider position unless you prefer softer or sharper printed images. To make images look sharper, slide the slider to the right. To make images appear softer in print, slide the slider to the left. The following are notes that apply to the two different types of final sharpening available in Qimage:

u Smart sharpening: Smart sharpening uses information such as resolution of the original image, the printer driver PPI, and the final print size to set the parameters of the sharpening algorithm to produce consistent, vibrant sharpening in every print.

u Normal sharpening: Normal sharpening will sharpen only the finest details in the print since it sharpens the image based only on the print driver PPI. Since this method does not take all factors into account with respect to the appearance of sharpness, the effect of this type of sharpening is more subtle and less consistent, and will depend on the print driver PPI and size of the final print.

Note: The sharpening level (slider) applies to both types of sharpening above and simply controls the level for the selected type of sharpening.

Windows NT/2000 users note: the "Spool one page at a time" option will not work under Windows NT/2000 unless you instruct the operating system to not "hide" messages from the print spooler. For more information, see the help tip in the troubleshooting section.

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Save Page

Printing to file versus printing to a printer - In addition to being able to print your document to your local or network printer (the default mode of operation), Qimage is also capable of printing each page to individual files. To switch all Qimage printing operations so that your document is printed to files (one file per page), simply click "File" on the main window menu and then select "Print To" and choose "File". Once "Print To" is set to "File", all print operations can still be performed as if you are printing to a printer, however, each page is stored as a file in the name/location you specify at print time. To switch back to printing to your printer(s), click "File", "Print To" and select "Printer". The descriptions below will assist in determining when to use these print modes:

Printer: When "Print To" is set to "Printer":

u Use this option when you would like to print directly to your local or network printer.

u The paper size and "printable area on the page" are defined by your print driver.

u To change paper size and printable area, click "File", "Page/Printer Setup" and change the paper and quality options through your print driver "Properties" for the currently selected printer.

u When "File", "Print" is selected, all pages or a range of pages may be printed. The selected range will print directly to the current printer (defined under "Page/Printer Setup").

File: When "Print To" is set to "File":

u Use this option when you are preparing printed pages to be printed off site (on a printer that is not currently available), such as when sending pages of prints to an online print service.

u The paper size and resolution (PPI) of saved pages are defined manually via user input.

u To change paper size and resolution, click "File", "Page/Printer Setup" and change the options on the "Print to File: Page Definition" dialog.

u When "File", "Print" is selected, all pages or a range of pages may be printed as files. The selected range will print to file(s) under the name specified. If "page" is specified as the file name, for example, and 3 pages are printed, unique image files are created for each page: page(0001), page(0002), page(0003). The image type of saved images may be selected via the save dialog when selecting the file name: simply drop down the "Save As Type" and select JPG, TIF, or BMP.

u Note that all printing options may be used and still apply when Qimage is operating in "Print to file" mode: interpolation level and type, smart sharpening, etc. If "Printer ICC" is enabled, the resulting image/page files will also be profiled with the selected printer ICC profile.

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Printer Font

Printer Font - to select the font used to print image information and annotations, click "Page", "Printer Font" from the main menu.

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Printer Setup

Printer Setup - click "File", "Page/Printer Setup" to set printer driver properties (quality, paper type and size, resolution, etc) before printing to obtain the highest quality results for finals, or lower quality for drafts/proofs, etc.

Saving and Restoring Printer Setup Properties - Since different printer driver properties are required for different types of paper, it is helpful to have a way to save printer driver properties and later retrieve them. Click "File", "Save Printer Setup" to save your current printer driver properties. Click "File", "Load Printer Setup" at a later time to restore printer driver properties.

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RAW Format Options

RAW Format Options - Since images in a raw CCD format simply contain raw image data that has not been profiled (direct from the CCD), we need some parameters to describe how we would like to decode these images. Since raw images give you maximum flexibility, there are some options that affect how RAW images are decoded in Qimage. Note that these options will be applied every time Qimage opens a RAW image, which applies to both viewing and printing of RAW images from within Qimage. Note, however, that like any image, you can also design an associative filter that gets applied to the image, so if you have a filter associated with a RAW image, remember that your associative filter will override the unsharp mask option in the "RAW Format Options", and the other filter parameters will also change their apearance.

To access the RAW Options, click "Settings", "RAW Format Options".

Gamma: This is the gamma value used to "darken" or "brighten" the raw image so that it has the proper brightness for your monitor/system. Since brightness is normally described by ICC profiles, this value is normally left at 1.0.

Contrast enhance: Normally left at the default (zero), you can use this parameter to increase shadow/highlight contrast.

Saturation: Also normally left at zero, you can increase/reduce the saturation of your images with this parameter.

Unsharp mask: Remember that RAW images are not sharpened at all by default. To get a truly sharp image, you will need to use the USM. Note that the value entered here is used any time you open a RAW image, however, you can associate different levels of sharpening with different RAW images using the batch filter.

Fringe Correction: Normally not needed, you can use fringe correction on difficult images that have high contrast areas of color moire.

Auto Level: Automatically corrects for over/underexposure by making the most of the dynamic range.

Color spaces: Qimage no longer automatically converts RAW images to a working space. There are standard ICC profiles in the \program files\qimage folder (default installation) associated with each supported raw format (d1-nef.icm, e10-orf.icm, etc). This profile describes the color space of RAW images. Qimage will automatically use this profile as an input profile whenever you select RAW images to be viewed/printed. Note that to view and print accurate RAW images, you must have monitor and printer color management turned on, and pointing to an appropriate profile. To learn more about how Qimage manages color via ICC profiles, see the Color Management section of the help. For additional information on dealing with Color Spaces and D1 NEF images, see the D1 NEF Tips page online (similar methods apply to other raw formats).

IMPORTANT: The above parameters are all that are needed to create extremely accurate images from RAW files. Do not use the D1 plugin in the batch filter in conjunction with Nikon D1 NEF images. The D1 plugin available in the batch filter is only for use with images stored by the camera in JPG format.

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Red Eye Correction

Red Eye Correction - Red eye/redeye is a condition caused by direct flash photography. When light from a camera's flash bounces off the retina of the human eye, the pupil of the eye appears bright red in the photograph. Red eye can be avoided by using a different flash technique such as bounce flash or changing the location of the flash unit to the side or top/bottom, however, Qimage offers a tool to correct red eye in photos where red eye was unavoidable. Red eye is considered a "blemish" in Qimage and therefore must be removed via the blemish corrector. Removing red eye is no different than removing a blemish, except that the blemish (red pupil) must be removed by darkening the "blemish" instead of blending with surrounding colors. The only thing to remember here is that you must click in the center of the eye (pupil) and drag the mouse pointer to the left when removing redeye.

For more information on how to remove blemishes and info on how to access the blemish correction, see the Blemish/Pixel Corrector section.

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Reordering Prints

Reordering Prints on a Page - You can change the position of a print in the document by moving it up or down in the queue. Simply click on a single print on the preview page and then right click on the preview page and select "Up" or "Down" to move the print backward or forward in the document respectively. Note that after you have selected one print on the preview page, you can also use the up and down arrow keys to move the print as well. When performing this action, the selected print will either advance or recede in the queue and the printed page unless you are operating in "Freehand" image placement mode. In Freehand placement mode, changing the order in the queue only changes which images get printed first on the page but will not change their locations in the document (since all positions are manually specified). Even in Freehand placement mode, however, this function has a benefit: it will allow you to change which print appears on top if you have overlapped two prints intentionally.

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Scrapbooks

Scrapbooks - The power of Qimage allows you to quickly and easily create scrapbooks. You can use the page editor to perform manual sizing and placement and use the batch filter to create cutouts for your images.

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Selected Thumbs/Files

Selected Thumbs/Files - When you select (mark) one or more thumbnails, you can right click anywhere in the thumbnail display area to drop down a menu of options. Note that the right click menu is separated into a group of functions that apply to the selected thumbnails (top group) and a group of functions that only apply to the thumbnail currently under the mouse pointer (bottom group).

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Slide Show

Slide Show - a slide show is available for the purpose of viewing images in a detailed format on screen. This option allows detailed examination of each image in the queue and allows final review prior to printing. To access the slide show, add images to the queue and then select "Queue", "Slide Show" from the top menu bar. Thumbnails may also be viewed full screen by right clicking on the thumbnail (see Full Screen View for more details).

Slide Show Options - When you first access the slide show, you will notice that a slide show options menu appears first (if you turned this option off, you can access it via "Settings", "Slide Show Options"). The slide show options menu includes the following settings:

u View (full screen or windowed): Select the mode for the slide show. Selecting full screen will show all images using the entire screen. When in full screen mode, you can right click to display a control menu that includes "Previous", "Next", and "Exit". If you select "windowed", all images are displayed in a large window. Note that in windowed mode, there are more options available such as rotate image, monitor gamma, remove from queue, etc.

u Stamp on image (number and date/time): Check the appropriate box(es) to have Qimage stamp each image with the information selected. The info will appear in the upper/left corner of the images.

u Flow (user advance or auto advance): Qimage can allow you to manually go forward/backward in the slide show, or you can select auto advance and set the time interval (below).

u Time Interval (seconds): Enter the amount of time to display each image before loading the next (applies only to auto advance).

u Auto advance (Next slide or random): When the time interval expires, Qimage will either load the next image in the queue or a random image.

u Show these options before slide show: Keep this box checked if you change options frequently. If however, you have the options set as you like and do not wish the options box to appear each time, uncheck this box. Note that if you uncheck this box and want to access the options again, simply click "Options" on the top menubar of the main screen and then select "Slide Show Options".

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Sort Prints

Sort Prints - Qimage always maintains the order of prints in the queue, even when placement is set to "Optimal". This allows you to refine your printed document by scrolling through page by page and print by print, selecting new fitting and size options without worrying about prints being re-sorted or losing track of where you are in the queue/document. Once the document is ready to print, however, you may wish to let Qimage take control of the placement and order of images in the queue. Clicking the "Sort Prints" button will sort prints from largest to smallest, placing 5x7 prints first, 4x6 next, then 3.5 x 5, etc. Having similar sizes grouped together makes cutting photos simpler and also uses less space in many cases. When in "Optimal" placement mode, the "Sort Prints" button has an additional benefit: it will not only sort by size, but also will look for ways to fill gaps on pages by moving smaller prints to fill "holes", resulting in the most efficient printing possible and the greatest paper savings.

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Templates

Templates - Note that in addition to the thumbnails of images in the current folder, there is always a blank [Template] at the bottom of the list. You can select [Template] as you would a normal image and drag it to the page or add it to the queue (all templates show as red rectangles). Let's say you would like to create a freehand setup that has templates exactly where you want them on the page. For example, some picture frames hold multiple prints of different sizes in different locations within an 8x10 frame. You could add the appropriate number of templates to the queue and manually arrange them on the page to fit in the multi-frame. Next, save the session by clicking "File", "Save Session" from the top menubar on the main screen. The templates and locations will be saved.

When you load the above session by clicking "File", "Load Session", the prior template locations will be restored. If you want to replace the templates on the page with new images while retaining the size and location of the templates, simply drag an image and drop it onto the template on the small preview page (note that all blank templates show up as red rectangles).

Note that dropping a thumbnail on an existing image will not replace that image as it does when you drop on a template. Dropping a thumbnail on the left side of an existing image will insert the new image before the existing image. Similarly, dropping a thumbnail on the right half of an existing image will insert the new image after the existing image. So... is there any way to replace an existing image (not a template)? The answer is yes. Since templates and images differ in their purpose, if you have an actual image that you want to replace, you can do this as well by performing these steps:

u In the small page preview in the upper right, click on any image on the page.

u The image will be highlighted on the preview page and the filename will also be highlighted in the queue in the lower left.

u Simply navigate to any new folder/image and click on it's thumbnail and drag the new thumbnail to the queue, dropping it on the highlighted filename.

u The image will be replaced by the new image.

u Repeat for other images.

Note: you do not have to perform the first step above. It is only to assist you in knowing which file in the queue is associated with which image. If you already know the filename, you can simply drag the new thumbnail directly to the filename in the queue and drop it.

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Thumbnail Font

Thumbnail Font - Click "View" and "Thumbnail Font" to change the font that appears under each thumbnail on the main screen.

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Managing the Thumbnail Cache

Managing the Thumbnail Cache - Click "Utilities", "Manage Thumbnail Cache" for options regarding storage of thumbnails by Qimage. To recover hard drive space used by Qimage thumbnails, you can choose to delete thumbnails for images past a certain "age", simply delete all thumbnails, or open Windows explorer to browse the thumbnail folder. Note that if thumbnails are deleted, they will reappear with each folder visited, and since Qimage will need to rebuild the thumbnails in those folders, thumbnail loading will be slower the first time the folder is accessed.

We recommend deleting all thumbnails more than 6 months old about once a year.

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Units of measure

Units - Qimage can operate in full metric/English units, and will remember your last setting. Click "Settings", "Units" to change the default units of measure in Qimage.

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Unsharp Mask

Unsharp Mask - Unlike the name implies, this filter is actually a high quality method for sharpening images.

To access the unsharp mask, add the images to the queue first and then select "Queue", "Batch Filter" from the top menu bar. Enter values for "Radius" and "Strength" and click "File" and "Save Filtered Image(s)" from the top menubar and click "Ok".

About the Qimage unsharp mask:

u An unsharp mask is basically a copy of the image that has been "unsharpened", i.e. softened. This softened copy is subtracted from the original to produce a difference image that shows only the sharp edges. The radius that you enter is basically the pixel radius that gets softened in the mask, and results in the "thickness" of your edges in the resulting image. When the softened mask is created and subtracted from the original, this result is then added back to the original by a certain amount (based on the percentage you enter), creating a very sharp image. This is the basic "equation" for all unsharp mask algorithms.

u Why is there no threshold in the Qimage unsharp mask? The Qimage USM is not a traditional USM! If you compare the results of the Qimage USM to other photo editing programs, the Qimage version is much cleaner (less noise) and has none of the color moire (color fringing) artifacts present in traditional USM's. The threshold used by other USM's is simply a "bandaid" that helps to reduce image noise, and since the Qimage USM produces far less noise than competing software, we didn't feel that the threshold "bandaid" was needed.

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Utilities

Utilities

u Run Photo Editor - Click to activate your photo editor.

u Run File Manager - click file manager to execute the file manager of your choice. This option can be useful for copying/deleting files, etc.

u Manage Thumbnail Cache - click to clean up/delete Qimage thumbnails from the thumbnail cache.

u File Manager/Photo Editor Setup - use this option to set up your default browser/explorer and photo editor before first use.

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White Balance Filter

White Balance - This filter readjusts the white balance of your image(s).

To access these filters, add the images to the queue first and then select "Queue", "Batch Filter" from the top menu bar. Next, click the small eye dropper button and click on (what should have been) a neutral area (white or gray) of the image. Note that the area should be at least 6x6 pixels in size (don't click on single pixels of white, etc). One you have clicked on an area that should appear white in the photo, click click "File" and "Save Filtered Image(s)" from the top menubar and click "Ok".

Notes on white balance:

u Remember that the area that you click on using the dropper should be at least 6x6 pixels (3 to the left, right, top and bottom of the dropper).

u Avoid clicking on "clipped" areas that are 255, 255, 255 in color (watch the "Curr. Color" values at the bottom of the parameters) since these clipped values of "brightest white" will not work for white balance.

u Try using areas that you know were really white (white sweater collar, white paper, gray t-shirt, etc).

u If you don't think there is any "real" white or gray in your photo, remember that human eyes are almost always close to white (on the outside of the iris of course).

u As a last resort, did you have your camera set to the wrong white balance for an entire shoot? Just find any one image in the entire batch that has a known white/gray object, use the dropper on that image and apply the white balance fix to the entire set of photos at once. Voila! All your photos now have the proper white balance!

u If there really is not white or gray in your photos, you may need to experiment with different percentages for the red and blue bias. You can enter these values (from -100 to 100) for both parameters to see how it affects the image. Proper white balance is normally within + or - 10.

Notes regarding color profile plugins, ICC profiles and RAW images:

u Proper white balance is key to being able to properly profile a camera for color, therefore if you are using a Qimage plugin (any camera model) and you suspect that white balance might be incorrect, simply correct the white balance using the white balance filter. When you correct white balance and apply a plugin, white balance is always corrected first before the plugin or profile is applied.

u The same applies to RAW CCD images. If you suspect improper white balance, simply use the batch filter to reset white balance. This new white balance will "feed into" the RAW image decoder to ensure proper white balance before any other operations are performed on the RAW image (like color correction/profiling).

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