[Techtalk] Mac or Linux for photo printing?

[Akkana Peck]

Carla Schroder writes:
> I'm getting frustrated with making photo prints on Linux. Some of the things 
> that are vexing:

First, have you tried the new app PhotoPrint? It might do a lot of
what you need. I think it needs the new Gutenprint backend, though.
http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/photoprint.shtml

> I have a Canon Pixma 4200 printer using the Turbo Print drivers.

One problem with Linux printing does seem to be a lot of different
driver sets. All my experience is with the gimp-print software and
drivers, so that might explain our different experiences.

I used to try to print labels and business cards and such via apps
like OOo or gLabels, but I gave up because although it was easy to
lay out my design, there was no way to print it with high quality:
the standard gnome and OOo print dialogs offered no way to change
these parameters (and I believe that's also true of KDE).
That's probably why you're seeing:

> -printing at different resolutions makes zero difference, whether it's 600dpi 
> or 2400dpi

So now I do everything from GIMP: I make templates for what I want
to print (e.g. a page of business cards corresponding to the Avery
business card sheets I bought) then print it via gimp-print.
I think the gimp-print dialog or PhotoPrint would address some of
your other issues, too, like slow print preview and not having a way
to scale images.

I have heard that the newest release of CUPS will finally offer an
API for changing values like resolution and paper type, so there may
be hope on the horizon for decent printing from other apps.

And all this reminds me that I've been meaning to install Edgy on
my desktop system, so that I'll get the new Gutenprint (which
supposedly handles borderless printing properly) and CUPS.
So I'm off to start a pre-installation backup. :-)

-- 
    ...Akkana
    "Beginning GIMP: From Novice to Professional": http://gimpbook.com