Slightly OT:Best Photo Printing Program with a Net54 Member Discount
 

First Off, I asked and was given permission by Leon to post this message.

I am posting this message to introduce the board to what I believe is the best desktop printing program available. Additionally I was given a group discount code by the author and owner of the program for the Net54 members.

The idea started when I began to frame things for my, still as of yet not finished, man cave. What I found was that, for some players, there were an abundance of photos available online in a high enough quality to make decent prints for framing. Unfortunately, for many others the best pictures, or any for that matter, are online in smaller sizes. These usually result in really bad prints. Additionally, many of the pictures online can not be purchased either. The recent discussion in the "Original Negatives" thread about making prints, made me feel this might be a useful tool for many others here.

Approx 10yrs ago, when I got my first digital camera(2.1 megapixel), I stumbled across a program called Qimage. I was not knowlegable at all about picture printing but took the plunge and bought it. The program's creator, Mike Chaney, sold and supported it through a list group. He would offer updates sometimes as often as weekly as the program grew. Since that time the program evolved into what it is today Qimage Ultimate.

The program is easy enough for beginners to learn and use fairly well, but powerful enough for professionals.

Whats so special? Well, too many things for me to detail to you in tone post, but I'll give you a few that I find most helpful. I can't really explain some of the technical stuff well, but I'll post a link. The website will do a much better job of that than I can.

1) Arguably the best program for upsampling photos to be able to print better looking prints at larger sizes than you would normally be able to print. For example, an original 3x5 printed at 8x10 size.

2) Ability to do basic editing and cropping without changing the original file by using a "filter" file that will be saved in the same folder as the picture file. You do have the option of saving the edited file as a new picture as well, but this takes up more space on you hard drive. This feature allows you to create a filter that you can apply to multiple pictures without having to re edit each.

3) The ability to print multiple photos on the same page of paper. Now this might not seem unique, but other programs usually only allow one size of prints on a page. No other program, that I am aware of, will allow you to put either the same or multiple different pictures in different sizes on the same page. For example, you can put a 5x7, 4x6, and 2 2x3s with 4 different pictures, all on the same sheet of letter size photo paper. If you prefer, it can also create these files that can be uploaded to professional printing websites or brought to your local professional printer.

4) Great learning tools. There are approximately 40 video tutorials on the website to take you step by step to learn the ins and outs. Alot of instructions are also available from within the program.

5) All program technical support is done by the author himself. Usually within 24 hrs. Also there is a forum of fairly active users who will also offer advice/tips/etc.

6,7,etc....
It can utilize and store custom profiles for your monitor and printer if you have calibrated them. It can "develop" RAW picture files.

These are only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. The link to the website is below and there is a 14 day free trial. The only limitation of the trial is that you can only print 4 pictures at a time.

http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/

The normal price is $89.99. This includes one year of unlimited updates. Subsequent updates cost $19.99 for each one year period of unlimited updates. The key is that you don't have to buy every year if you don't want. You can skip a year or two or more and then buy another year of updates which would bring your version current. A non updated version will still function normally, it just won't have some of the newest upgrades.

If after trying it out, you are interested in purchasing, the author has extended to us a group discount. His current sale, which I have to say doesn't happen too often, is $74.99. For the group the price is $69.99. This is the lowest I have ever seen it offered for.

The link to the group page is
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qugroupdiscount

The credentials needed to get into the group discount page are below

username: qimage
password: qu2013qu

I was told that the password changes from time to time, but these should work at least until the end of July. If you find they stop working shoot me a TM and I'll ask for the newest passwords.

Sorry for the long post. I hope some may find benefit from this program.

As a disclaimer, I hold no ownership of any type in his program, company, or any company affiliated with his company. I also did not ask him for any cut of the proceeds or special deal for myself.

Best,
Mark