Lentigram feedback and Guten Print

[Giovanni Remigi]

I've received the following feedback about Lentigram which I want to post here.

I have a few quick feedbacks;

1) It would be good to have a crop option for testing. For example, we have a 1m x 1m print. After setting everything it would be nice to be able to select any part and size piece and save it with the alignments. For just checking the pitch and color, an A4 print is enough. Now after interlacing we need to go back to photoshop to crop the image. And if we do it we lose the alignments. Or we just need to interlace the smaller portion from the beginning and this means cropping each item before interlacing. If we have a cropping option it would save time and space.

2) On Linux there is "Guten Print drivers" for printers. I have done a lot of tests and used a USB microscope and checked the dots with both Guten Print and a few other RIP software. I can really say that Guten Print prints the most precise dots possible. It is actually maybe better than a really high-end expensive RIP software. It supports a very wide range of printers, especially Epson Printers and has lots of ready precise color profiles. And it's totally free. You just install Ubuntu Studio and you already have GIMP and Guten Print drivers installed.

I have been printing with Guten Print with my Epson Stylus Pro 4900 which is small but very nice 10 color printer. A2 is my max size to print. And it was not a problem until now as I try to print 1m x1m work. I couldn't figure out why, but it crashes when I try to print an image bigger than 80cmx80cm at 720ppi. I have contacted Guten Print developers, they say it is most probably from GIMP. Maybe GIMP can't handle such big files. 

Anyway long story short; You already have a Linux version of Lentigram. If you can implement printing directly from Lentigram and make it print big files as much as we require this can be really a turning point in the community. It will help Linux and Guten Print to become more used as they are free software and make Lentigram a more preferred software. And mostly it will help people like me who can not afford a 3000 usd rip software.

My answer below.

The crop function has been in my mind for a while together with a function to remove keystone distortions. I was working on a project early this month where such a function would have been helpful. I will implement it for sure.

This is the first time I hear about Guten Print and it is very interesting news, especially if you did a comparison analysis under the microscope. I will definitely have a look but I cannot promise because I'm trying to keep Lentigram cross-compatible. For example, I received feedback that Lentigram could run much faster if I implement the interlacing algorithm on GPU. Unfortunately, Apple dropped the support to NVIDIA and it would require too much work from my side to support two different interlacing algorithms. The first thing I will do is to check if Guten Print can work on Windows or Mac too.

If you use a RIP software, in Lentigram you can considerably reduce the size of the interlaced image if you flag the option "Interlacer to keep original image height". That may work for you.

[Parallax Printing]

I love that you are developing with your users' requests in mind, or at least considering them, its not all that often that this happens. I would be happy for the user that submitted these if they were included though they are not the features I would personally like the most. The features that seem most important to me in order of importance are:

1 New registration approach. I would love 6 color registration bands (C,w,M,w,Y,w) that go all around the print. This gives you much more feedback than simple two color registration. Also an updated alignment system for finding center.
2 Speed improvements (moving to GPU) though I know the reasons this may not be possible
3 Automatic file naming. Would automatically name the files using the size and pitch of the print. For example _lenticular_30x40_20.05.bmp
4. Memory of file browsing window size. I dislike having to stretch open the window every time I do file management in the software
5. Ability to choose white as the background in the simulation screen
6. Ability to interlace with no restrictions on size

Thanks for all your hard work, planning on buying the new version when it comes out regardless of whether my requests end up in there but think they would be updates that would benefit a majority of users. I know you have heard from me more times than you want on some of these so I won't mention them again.

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Chris Dean  |  2615 Wolcott St. Suite D Ferndale MI 48220  |  248-397-5156

[Giovanni Remigi]

Hi Chris, 

1) I haven't forgotten about the registration feedback you sent me long ago.

2) For speed improvements and GPU, the issue is mainly due to Apple dropping support for GPU. On the other side of the coin, Lentigram may be slower than other software because it does more computing to eliminate banding and also works at the subpixel level too to blur the background. Of course, if you add more threads to the machine, (new CPU) Lentigram will run faster. I personally use an Intel i9 with 20 cores.

3) This is in the queue of things TODO.

4) This should already work as expected in version 2.

5) This is available in version 2 already.

6) This is not straightforward. One of the key features of Lentigram is being able to simulate the result. The bigger the image the bigger the chance the simulation explodes. In the current version I'm working on, I pushed the limit to 100" x 100".

Regards,

Giovanni

[Parallax Printing]

Oh wow, guess I missed some stuff in not upgrading, that's all great. Any timeline on the new release? Possible to pay for the new version and use a pre-release in the meantime? Thanks!

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lentigram/bbf0ecc8-91e8-4702-89bb-7283c10057e9n%40googlegroups.com.