Photoprint, Gutenprint’s best friend

I previously talked about Gutenprint, a high quality photo-oriented driver for the Epson inkjet printers. Today I want to introduce to you Photoprint (web), a GUI utility to make the most of Gutenprint. As a preliminary note, please be aware that since I don’t own an Epson printer (and Photoprint doesnt work with HPIJS, afaik), this entry will be more like a presentation than a full blown test.

It is good to be back to updating this blog, though 🙂

This is what a typical photoprint screen looks like:

As you can see, it is all about defining how many images you want to put where on which page format. You can create CD covers (with several images blending together), arrange how many images you want per sheet (4 in this screenshot) or simply chose poster for one big image per sheet. All this under the layout menu.

Photoprint also offers a couple of effects such as Black & White conversion and “temperature” correction (a one slider white balance).

Under options, we have an interesting submenu: color management. That’s right, Photoprint allows you to define your monitor, editing, image and printing profile and manages the conversion for printing purpose on its own. No more hand made conversion – this deserves a screenshot 🙂

Since my HP Photosmart is not really supported by Gutenprint, I couldn’t do a full scale testing. However, I tried exporting an image file and compared it with my “standard procedure” in Cinepaint. The output is exactly similar, which is not surprising since both programs use the LittleCMS library.

All in all, I would say that Photoprint is a handy tool to have if you print several images on one sheet or to automate the steps of the printer’s color management – one thing that hopefully will become more and more standard for Linux photographic applications that allow printing.

And to keep a long tradition going, here is one of my last images from Parc des oiseaux in Dombes, France.