Did you never get head aches when
printing digital photos on a
paper? The format of the paper
is never standard, so it is
difficult to center the photo,
to find the good margin, and
orientation of the photo. Perhaps
I am an idiot, but I have wasted
a ton of expensive photo papers, bottles
of
ink, and my time, before I have
created ImagePrinz. ImagePrinz
has only one function: to print
comfortably a photo or a picture
on a paper sheet of any size. Only
one photo per sheet, and only
centered. Since I have been
using ImagePrinz,
I have not missed one single
photo print. If you try
it, you will perhaps enjoy the same satisfaction.
But perhaps not. Don't forget
I am not a professional programer,
I don't have the possibility
to test my freewares on all
existing systems. If it does
not work for you, feel free
to give me a feedback, and I
will try to improve it.
ImagePrinz
may be downloaded by clicking
on the above link. You get
a zip file of only 530Kbytes.
ImagePrinz needs no
installation. Just unzip
the exe-file into a folder
and you are ready to use
it. The current version
is 2.0a and has been released
on 2005, February the 1st.
ImagePrinz
is freeware, but only for
personal use. Use by a company,
an administration, or during
professional activities
is unlawful. Please contact
me if you need a licensed
version. It is delivered
to you without any warranty
of any kind. It has been
tested successfully with
Windows 98 se, and Windows
XP sp1. ImagePrinz
is not opensource, so please
don't ask me for the source
code.
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Quick
Start
The
first step
is straightforward: double-click
on the icon of Imageprinz,
and the empty window opens.
Then load some files, either
by clicking on the open-speedbutton,
or by drag-and-drop, or
with a right-click on the
window to open a popup menu,
or even by pasting files
if there are some copied
in the clipboard. The keyboard
shortcut CTRL+O opens also
files. Only jpg or bmp files
will be processed.
Notice
also the Digital Device
Button: with one click,
or with F7, it will load
all jpg-files from the default
folder. This is very useful,
if the default folder points
to the folder of a digital
device like a camera or
a camcorder. Look here if
you want to set or change
the default folder.
The
second step
is easy because it is really
WYSIWYG: Choose a file in
the listbox, and make some
little settings, in order
to fit your image to your
paper sheet:
1
Select
a paper sheet. Look here,
if your specific paper is
not listed in the combobox.
2
Crop
the image if it is better
fitted, 3
force
the ratio to 4x3 or 16x9
if your image comes from
a DVD or SVCD or a DV avi,
4
change
the orientation of the paper
sheet, or even 5
rotate
the image. Every change
is reversible, and is immediately
seen in the preview window,
where
the white frame is your
paper sheet.
The
third step
is to print the image. Click
Print (or type CTRL+P or
F8) and follow the instructions:
you get first the standard
print form from your printer.
Choose quality of print,
number of copies etc. but
don't bother with papersheet
dimensions. It will be set
by ImagePrinz. Then
click on a rectangle of
the next window to tell
ImagePrinz how the papersheet
is introduced into the printer:
left or right, bottom or
top, by width or by height.
On
some printers, this will
not work correctly. In that case,
check the box Inverse, and
one of the rectangles should
work. In the worst case
you will waste four prints
until you find a correct
rectangle for your printer.
For instance, if your paper
is introduced at the bottom
left, try bottom left normal,
bottom right normal, bottom
left+inverse, bottom right+inverse.
These tries are only to
be made once. If it works
once, it will work forever. The
inverse checkbox
may be set by default in
the preferences.
In
some cases, there is a final
verification: you are prompted
to adjust the margin, to
be at least equal to the
physical margin of your
printer. It is recommended
to accept,
otherwise your image will
be cropped on one edge,
and not be really centered.
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At
first start, the papersheets
combobox contains four different
formats, all having dimensions
given in millimeters:
bristol
100x150, photo 165x105,
canon 101.6x152.4, A4.
The
latter one is 210x290 of
course. These paper formats
are useful for me. But your
paper may be different.
You should
always try to set the exact
dimensions of the sheet that you are using,
and not an approximate one.
Thefore you will have sometimes
to personalize the list
of paper formats, and add
your own format. Indeed,
you may also delete formats
that are not useful for
you, in order to make it
simpler to use. To
manage these paper formats,
click CTRL+B or on the adequate
speedbutton
and you get the paper formats
window:
On
the top of the window, you
may enter a new format indicating 1
a title, 2 a width in mm
and 3
a height in mm. I recommend
to include the dimensions
in the title like "bristol
100x150". It is easier to
remember. After that, 4 click
Add.
You
may also delete a format
in the list 5: just select
it and click del. You may
reorder the formats, so
that the most used formats
come first in the combobox.
Do this by draging a paper
name
in the bottom list 5.
When
you are finished, 6
click Apply
to keep your modifications,
or Cancel to return to the
program without modifications.
Important:
when you have set new paper
formats, you will generally
want to keep them when you
quit Imageprinz and to find
them again at next start.
For this, you should save
the preferences to your
registry. Look here how
to do this. If you forget
it, ImagePrinz will remember
you to save the preferences
when it is about to close.
If you have checked the
checkbox Save the preferences
when quit, then all this
saving stuff is made automatically
behind the scene.
So it is a good deal to
check it, if you become a
frequent user of ImagePrinz.
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A
great value of Imageprinz
is the ability to show a
WYSIWYG ("What you
see is what you get")
preview of your printed
photo on the sheet. So there
are some commands to know
to make this preview comfortable.
F12
organises the best possible
display of the main window
and the preview window on
your screen, so it is recommended
to type F12
very often.
F11
is a kind of fullscreen
for the preview. You may
no more see the main window,
but notice that the Up
and Down keys remain
active to browse between
the images of you main list.
This offers a very simple
way to display easily a
collection of pictures,
even if you don't intend
to print them. Type again
F11
to
come back to a normal size
of preview.
F9
centers
the preview on the screen,
without changing its size.
If
you have a wheelmouse,
the wheel may zoom in or
zoom out the preview window.
If you don't have one, type
+ or - (plus
or
minus)
on the keypad.
Finally,
the space
bar
toggles between hiding and
showing the preview screen.
On
the other hand, if you don't
need to see the list of
images, then type F6
to
hide this list (and
F6 again
to show it).
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When
you start ImagePrinz,
it is loaded with default
settings, which may not
be convenient for you. Most
important is to set the
correct paper sizes. Look
here how to manage the
paper formats.
You
may also change the default
directories. There are two
default directories: one
for opening some files with
the open command, and one
which loads automatically
all jpg files when
you type F7
or click on the digital
device button. You should
set the first directory
to a folder where are the
images you want to load
most often. The default
directory is My Pictures,
which could be
OK. The second directory
depends on your device.
My printer is a Canon
SmartBase MP370 which
accepts MemorySticks
from my Sony camera.
When a memorystick
is plugged into it, the
photos are in a folder called
H:\DCIM\101MSDCF, so that's
the directory I use as
a digital device folder.
These
modifications are made in
the preferences page,
obtained by clicking on
the help button (or by the
F1
key)
 .
If
the preferences are
not displayed, click on
the Preferences tab
at the top of the left panel.
When
you have changed some preferences:
either paper formats, or
directories, or even the
checkbox Inverse the
printer settings (look
here to know what it
means), you should consider
saving them to the registry,
in order to keep them even
if you close ImagePrinz.
You may also check the box
Save the preferences
when quit, in order
to save them automatically.
If
later you don't want to
keep the correspondant entries
in your registry, then click
delete the preferences
and ImagePrinz will
restore the default settings
by cleaning your registry.
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Communication
with your default image
editor: The key F5
or
a click on the speedbutton
with tools sends the selected
image to your default image
editor, the one that is
associated with the extension
bmp or jpg in Windows. You
may then modify the image,
change the contrast, or
crop it etc. and when finished
come back to ImagePrinz
to print it. I use this
function with Paint Shop
Pro, but any Image
Editor which is compatible
with the OLE methods of
Windows should work.
Clipboard:
if you have edited an image
in your favorite image editor,
you may copy it to the clipboard
and paste it to Imageprinz.
When you paste directly
the image data, there is
no associated file. So you
will be prompted to save
it with a name before selecting
another file in the list.
Reciprocally, you may also
copy the image data from
ImagePrinz to the
clipboard with the copy
button.
Keyboard
shortcuts: When you
open the help panel (with
F1)
you may see not only the
preferences, but
also the list of all keyboard
shortcuts. This is very
useful, if you work with
Imageprinz and don't
want to memorize too many
commands. I must apologize
here, because two shortcuts
are not yet implemented,
although here listed: Delete
all files
and Print
All.
Sorry you will have to wait
for a next update...
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