Qimage

[cardiff_gareth]

Hello, just bought a new printer- a Canon Pro 300 as with the black friday cashback it was £449. It replaces an aging R3000 Epson that wasn't used correctly and the print head got clogged and I can't seem to fix it on 2 colours. My fault as it would be turned off and turned back on when I wanted to use it. After killing the Epson I've learnt a lot more from research on how to keep a home printer happy such as leaving it turned on at the mains so it doesn't want to do a head clean and waste ink when turned back on.

This leads me to Qimage. What actually does it do which makes it worth buying?

I know you can schedule it to do a weekly nozzle check which stops the heads drying and clogging up but can I just, say every Sunday morning, perform a nozzle check myself direct on the printer? I'm guessing the host PC for the Qimage software needs to be turned on for the software to communicate with the printer so in essence it's doing something I can do myself, but it takes the remembering out of it and automates the task?

I also think Qimage can print multiple images onto a page via drag and dropping images in? I'm just getting my head around the Canon software so I'm not sure ifbthat can do the same?

I presume there's more to this Qimage which I don't know about, I just want to make sure I'm not wasting money on software I can either do myself, the Canon software or Photoshop can do?

 

[ecoleman]

I use QImage One which is for Macs. It's a lsightly cut down version of the Full QImage Ultimate for Windows but does everything I need for printing.

You can setup schedules for printing nozzle patterns but yes the printer needs to be on as does the PC. As my Printer and Mac are off when I'm not using it I just have a reminder on the Calendar to run the print every Friday. There is no point in keeping the printer turned on. Canon printers run a head clean on a timed schedule and Epson don't run any automatic head cleans as long as you are printing something every so often.

Other that that Qimage has very clever algorithms for resizing and sharpening your image to ensure the print driver received the best quality image possible. It remembers paper types and the variouos print settings for each so you don't have to worry about print settings every time you print. Just pick you paper type, size and print. You can also save layout templates for future use eg. printing a book. The prints my printer spits out when using Qimage are far superior to printing through Lightroom both in terms of sharpness and colours.

Yes you can layout multiple images on a page and if you are using roll paper it is very clever in working out the best layouts to get all your prints out with as little wasted paper possible. The layout side of things can be a little clunky and it's not the greatest UI but you do get used to the quirks and it gets the job done. Most of my image are single images anyway.

I bought the lifetime package last year sometime and have had 3 updates so far and will receive updates for the life of either me or the product which ever comes first I guess.

As for your printer blockage, have you tried Magic Bullet? Soak a bit of lint free cloth in Magic Bullet and position it under the print head and leave it overnight. If you want soak it again the next day and leave it a second day. That usually deals with any stubbon blocked heads I've ever had.

 

[Harlequin565]

Do you have Lightroom?

The print module is excellent for printing. You can save all your profiles (print adjustment + paper size + ICC + layout if necessary) to templates which make printing a one-click process and doable straight from LR rather than having a plugin or additional software.

I've never used Qimage (or any other programme like it) because the prints I get out of LR look exactly like they do on my screen.

My Epson SP4800 was continually having to be de-clogged/run regularly because of blocked nozzles, but the SC-800 I have now is fine, even when left for a couple of months without printing. I suspect the ink/nozzle technology continues to improve, so you may find a newer printer may not have those old issues.

As always, YMMV.

 

[Bebop]

I also use Qimage One as I have a Mac. The Windows version is more complete I believe, as ecoleman said.

I used to set it up to schedule maintenance prints on my Canon Pro 1 when I went away on holiday and it was fine, but I don't bother these days. I've never had a clog - it is in quite a cool room, so perhaps this is why? It could be famous last words, as it has now been turned off for a while after an electric storm cut the power! You could easily put a reminder in your phone to print something once a week and maybe look into Q1 later if you find you need it?

Qimage One is great for laying out the prints however you'd like. My version doesn't do proper soft proofing, but I guess the Windows version might.

One of the possibilities is to run the same print job later, so that you don't have to go through all the settings again if you wish to duplicate the print process. It sounds like this is also possible from Lightroom using templates.

I don't have Lightroom any more and apart from the layout options, I was very happy with it. (The layout options may have improved since I left it a few years ago).

 

[russellsnr]

Used Qimage for ages on a Windows computer and found it easy to use, believe that the head clean print does not use as much ink as the option that comes with a printer.
Plenty of information on there web site and always get an answer to a question.
I have since moved to Mac and in the should I shouldn't I buy the Mac version.
One downside and only my opinion as I owned Qimage ultimate I assumed I would get at least some discount on the version for Mac but apparently sold under a different label.
Shrewd move or not?
Russ.