Digital Prints

for producing black-and-white prints, see “The Secret World of Digital Black and
White.”) Following are a few examples:
Qimage
Qimage (from Digital Domain) is a popular viewing and printing software package. Sold
direct and only for Windows 95/98/NT/2000/ME/XP operating systems, Linux systems
running Wine, and Macs running Virtual PC, it’s reasonably priced at $45 (from
www.ddisoftware.com/qimage), and it has avid supporters. “Qimage is just the greatest
printing software,” says artist Linda Jacobs. “I could probably trade Photoshop for some
other image editing program, but I’d never be without Qimage.”
Qimage calls itself a “printing application” for improving print quality using internal printoptimization
algorithms. It functions as a combination RIP and an image-editor, and
where it really shines is with “auto-sizing” or interpolation in order to make large prints.
(See more about this feature in “Printing Big!”)
ILFORD GALERIE Professional Printer Drivers
ILFORD was planning (at this writing) to launch GALERIE Professional Printer Drivers
in North America in the fall of 2004. These drivers are designed for GALERIE paper customers
looking for a simple and automatic way to achieve better color control and consistency
without having to use ICC profiles. After these printer drivers are installed on
your computer (PC or Mac), you select the one for your printer and the GALERIE media
type when you’re ready to print, and the driver takes over the printing control to produce
optimized color for that combination. The drivers will be available for a limited number
of Canon, HP, and Epson inkjet printers; however, ILFORD promises continuous updating
for more printers. For those who prefer to use ICC profiles, ILFORD offers more than
120 profiles for free download from www.ilford.com.
Chapter 11 ■ Special Printing Techniques 341
Artist Linda Jacobs prints custom,
holiday wall calendars using Qimage
and an Epson 1160 inkjet printer. “I
have a low-end digital camera that I use
for close-ups,” she says. “Without
Qimage I could never get by with such
low resolution.”
Courtesy of Linda Jacobs