Thumbcat
Image Catalogue Application
8 Printing
Thumbcat can produce two types of printout, the original images and a contact sheet.
8.1 The Method Used
Please take note of this description of how Thumbcat arranges images for printing in order
to understand the actual appearance of a printout.
Step 1 |
Switch round the "portrait" paper sizes for a landscape layout. |
Step 2 |
Divide the paper area up into rows and columns according to the paper size and the number
of images per page e.g. 2-up portrait is 2 rows and 1 column whereas 2-up landscape is 1 row and
2 columns
|
Step 3 |
For clipped images make the aspect ratio the same as the sub area from step 2 by removing
rows or columns evenly. NB for a fixed layout format if a landscape image is printed into
a portrait sub area (or vice versa) then about half the image will be clipped!
Also note that a portrait paper layout with 2 images has 2 landscape orientated image areas
|
Step 4 |
Load the original image into memory as a 24bit sprite and assess its size |
Step 5 |
If the resolution of the scaled image is greater than the users chosen resolution (from the
options screen) then scale the image before inserting it into the drawfile to reduce the size of the
drawfile. |
Step 6 |
For the auto layout work out any rotation matrix if necessary.
|
Step 7 |
Insert the sprite from memory into the drawfile. Since all images are converted to 24bit
sprites the drawfile can become quite large. |
8.2 Printout Definition
The print definition window is the same for both image and contact printing :
8.2.1 Printer Info
This area shows information about the printer.
8.2.2 Labels
All printouts can have page labels as well as labels for each image. By default there are
no labels when printing "photo" size images. When printing a contact sheet the default labels
are for a page header made up of the album and catalogue names and for each image to be labelled
with the filename.
Page headers and footers consist of 3 sub parts orientated to the left, centre and right. These
can have tokens embedded in the text which are translated at the time the page is constructed.
The tokens currently recognised are :
&PT - Total number if pages in the job
&PN - Current page number
&AT - Album title
&CT - Catalogue title
&DT - The date in the format dd-mon-yyyy
&TM - The time in the 24 hour format hh:mm:ss
Each image can optionally have its title and date printed centrally below the image area by
selecting the appropriate option button.
8.2.3 Options
This defines how the print job will proceed. It is possible to create unprinted drawfiles only
vy dragging the draw icon to a directory. Each page will be "printed" to a seperate drawfile named
Page1 to Pagex.
8.2.4 Image Position
When the page is built up the printable area is split up into equal sizes for each image. By default
the images are printed centrally within each of these areas. However the images can be position in
any one of 9 locations. Take note , however, that if a best fit option has been selected then the
positioning has no effect since the image fully fits the sub area.
8.2.5 Contact Sheet Layout
This section only applies to contact sheet printing. It defines whether all the images in an album
are printed (the default) or only the selected ones. This saves having to select all images prior
to printing which is the usual action for normal image printing. The size of the thumbnail can
also be defined.
8.2.6 Print Area
This section defines the size of the printed image. For fixed sizes the image may be clipped to
get it to fit the aspect ratio. Clipping is done evenly on both sides of an image.
With a best fit unclipped option the resulting image will be printed with blank margin on both
sides if the aspect ratio differs from the available area.
8.2.7 Layout
This defines how the images are rotated to fit. With the "Auto" option selected the images are
rotated by 90° to ensure that the aspect ratio of the image matches the available sub area.
This is the best option to use when printing multiple images on a page for subsequent cutting
to size. The portrait and landscape layouts apply to the paper not the image.