I find that I have to use gpp sometimes, because I want to print more than four images to a page, but less than the 20 that Thumbnails give.  A custom size setting and the ability to print x number to a page based on that would be wonderful.

Anne

*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***

Maybe this should be opened in another report, but seems related.

An option to scale-but-keep-aspect ratio is MUCH needed.  With most of the photo printouts, it's more important to get all of the picture printed, than cropping out a lot of the picture to get it to fit in x sized box.

Combined with the custom printout size option, this would make a very powerful printing app.

(For example, print 100 pictures, make the 'boxes' 2x3 inches that the pictures will print into, autoscale the images within that box, and you're off!)

A more useful alternative to the proposed "scale-but-keep-aspect ratio" option would be a slider on the "Crop Photos" step that would zoom in/out the crop box shown on top of the image.

This would provide three very useful things:

1) It would allow enlarging the crop box to include up to the whole image (effectively achieving the "scale but keep aspect ratio" option). For this to work, the image itself would need to be scaled down on the Crop Photos screen to be able to fit completely in a max-sized crop box. Ideally, to keep current default behavior, the initial size and position of the crop box would be centered on the image so that the image filled the crop box in both dimensions.

2) It would allow adjusting the crop box to just the amount needed to make sure the important part of the image is not cropped out. 

3) It would allow zooming into an image so that only the part you want printed is selected.  This is especially useful with today's high-res cameras when making small prints for scrapbooking, for example.

I print out pictures to stick in an old style phtoto album. They need to be a very specific non-standard size to do this efficiently (ie get 6 to a album page).

I would like to be able to batch print at this custom size, at 4 to an A4 sheet. 

I second comment #3 and would go further to say that cropping images or changing aspect ratios should never happen, at least not by default. For anyone in the graphics world, a square or differently proportioned print or thumbnail print of an image is useless or worse than useless.

Also, I find it frustrating that print size options vary according to the paper size that has been selected. Both should be independently adjustable in either metric or imperial dimensions.

My ideal image printing software is ACDSee Classic and I'd love to see Print Wizard work more like that and less like the Windows Print Wizard which makes too many assumptions and tries (unsuccessfully) to think for me. (ACDSee Classic, by the way, is the program as it was about 10 years ago before it got all the bells and whistles that needlessly complicated it. I can elaborate on the features I like if anyone is interested.)

Thanks.

> I second comment #3 and would go further to say that cropping images or changing aspect ratios should never happen, at least not by default. For anyone 

in the graphics world, a square or differently proportioned print or thumbnail print of an image is useless or worse than useless.
I'm not sure i've got it. But without cropping the photos made with my camera 
will never fit in any photo papers i've tried (maybe 13x18 cm not sure though).
That means if I chose to enlarge/reduce the image (even preserving ratio) 
I would have white space somewhere (depending on paper layout).

That does not mean i don't like the idea to preserve the image layout, or
keep ratio, that only mean that if i took the image to a photographer
he would probably crop my photo to make it fitting into 10x15 cm layout.
He for sure doesn't use kipi-plugins :)

> Also, I find it frustrating that print size options vary according to the paper size that has been selected. Both should be independently adjustable in 

either metric or imperial dimensions.
Changing that would mean changing a lot of code IIRC, i will think about it, but maybe the best
time to change printwizard behaviour is when we will port it on kde4, since we must
move from kprinter to qprinter.
 
> My ideal image printing software is ACDSee Classic and I'd love to see Print Wizard work more like that and less like the Windows Print Wizard which 

makes too many assumptions and tries (unsuccessfully) to think for me. (ACDSee Classic, by the way, is the program as it was about 10 years ago before it 
got all the bells and whistles that needlessly complicated it. 
Printwizard is just a wizard, but could become more like a print assistant if changed a bit.
ACDSee is a proprietary sw and developed by payed people who probably make what the market asks for,
here we are volonteers so we make our best in our *little* spare time...
Print menu (like it should be in acdsee) is for host applications not for kipi-plugins imo.
> I can elaborate on the features I like if anyone is interested.) 

Contributors are always welcome so please go on, i will be happy to see your
patches and add them to our plugins.

Angelo

> keep ratio, 

btw the ratio should be kept when the image is fitted into the chosen 
layout iirc.

Angelo, yes, you're right that there will be white space around the images if they are not all cropped to squares. That's the nature of it: a thumbnail print sheet can conserve paper or it can show the images accurately. Think about the on-screen thumbnails; a thin gray line defines a square area within which each image occupies as much space as it can without being cropped or altered. If you change the size of the thumbnails, it automatically adjusts the number it can show in a row - it is quite elegant in its simplicity. If that could make its way to paper ...

After making a request for an improved thumbnail printer here, I have found that GQview will give me the kind of thumbnail printing I'm looking for and I've used it a few times. It's a shame to leave Gwenview though, because it's such a good program. If you're interested, take a look at GQview's printing, particularly the options of "All" and "Proof Sheet."

Re ACDSee, yes, it's commercial and I think they ruined their own product by over-developing it in search of more sales. When I started using it though, it was shareware with a voluntary contribution of $10. It was one of the very few times I actually paid for a shareware product and I still use that simple version. I suspect there were not many paid people involved back then.

Thank you and everyone working on Gwenview. You're doing a great job and my help programing would only get in your way - I haven't learned a thing since about 1980.

Angelo, 

This file still valid ?

Gilles Caulier

some of the whishes here are implemented now. A lot of things are discussed in this bug and i cannot follow what is fixed and what is not any more :/
I close this bug hoping not tu hurt any feelings, if some whishes are not implemented yet, please open a new bug for them.
Thanks,
  Angelo