Printing pictures

[Ian Rose]

bryann wrote:
> 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)
>
>
>
>
>   

I would use GIMP for any touch-up work, colour correction, cropping, 
contrast adjustment etc. The printing from GIMP is hard to recommend - 
for me the quality of its drivers are unusable even for very rough 
drafting. Having tried the range of both KDE and Gnome photo apps, and 
really wanting to use FOSS solutions, I find that Picasa2 is *by far* 
the best solution for printing and managing photos, despite being 
free-but-not-fully-open-source.

Printing to standard sizes is handled so easily it makes you weep - 4x6 
is supported btw, as are contact prints and some basic (but competent) 
image enhancements. (Of course if you want to print to a non-standard 
size, like 7x9, you appear to be out of luck!)

The .debs for Debian/Ubuntu can be found with full instructions via:

http://picasa.google.com/linux/

-- 
Ian