Printing pictures

[bryann]

On Fri, 2006-12-22 at 20:28 -0500, D. Michael McIntyre wrote:
> On Friday 22 December 2006 7:53 pm, Michael Satterwhite wrote:
> > In Ubuntu / Kubuntu, what program do you recommend for printing
> > pictures. e.g. If I have a jpg taken from my digital camera (I use a
> > flash card reader) and want to print it to a 4x6 (possibly without white
> > margins) on my HP 5440, what is the best package for this?
> 
> Probably the best thing is KPrinter.  Be sure to click the "Properties" 
> button, and play with the settings on the "Images" tab to try to get the best 
> results.
> 
> The best isn't that good, in my opinion, but it's better than anything else 
> I've tried.  Many people recommend using the GIMP to print, but I've never 
> been able to figure out how to get that to work for anything that isn't on 
> the list in the GIMP, and it doesn't include any printer or anything close to 
> any printer I've ever tried to use, and if there are any clear instructions 
> that make perfect sense, they're well disguised.
> 
> Printing photos is a bit of a trouble spot for Linux as far as I can see.  
> Maybe someone will make both of us a better suggestion.
> 
> In the meantime, I do all my photo printing with commercial services.
> 
> -- 
> D. Michael McIntyre 
> 
This is probably going to get me flamed . The only satisfactory programs
I have for QUALITY printing to RECENT pcl3 printers are Picassa2 from
google and Corel Photopaint from the Corel 9 suite which runs on
Crossover beta. The latter only works on Postscript printers without
hacking a bit. The GIMPRINT drivers are woefully obsolete, for many
current printers the only working choice is to emualte an HP5xx era
printer at 300DPI which is useless.

Also I have compiled the full HPILP/HPJIS as the ubuntu version was
found wanting.

The trick to using GIMP if you so desire is to ALWAYS export it to a
Postscript File.  Then print the file. OR use Gimp to set up your pics
Gamma Contrast etc.then do your layout with Scribus.

for general purpose home use. I recommend googles picassa2 alone or
along with digikam.

I have been mostly using digikam and GIMP to access and adjust the
images. All of our digital camera pics are done 5-10 megapixels. I use
GIMP to bring them down to web size resolution etc. for PCL printers I
then use Picassa to make the prints. Digikam's cropping and adjustment
tools are usally used first though (red eye remover etc) as the pics are
ususally downloaded to my iBOOK immediately to check them out on a
screen not made for Lilliputians.

Bryann  (Melvin Graphics)