Printing software

I am looking for a better, but still free, photo printing option.

My Pixma ip5000 printer was supplied with Canon's Easy-PhotoPrint
application. I find it difficult to give an honest appraisal of this
application without resorting to offensive language. Suffice it to say that
when printing multiple photos on a sheet it gives you no control over which
photo goes in which cell. Also, only orthogonal arrangements are supported.
You cannot, for example, print a panorama along the long edge of an A4 sheet
and two 5.5x4 prints on the other half.

As a professional software developer I've had a go at adding printing to my
own application. The interface is, of course, perfect and you can drag and
stretch the print cells around the page to your heart's content.
Unfortunately there are two problems I've been unable to overcome. Firstly
I have failed to crack how to do borderless printing (despite obtaining
Canon's software developer's kit). Secondly I'm not really up to speed with
the mathematics of preparing images for printing. My print code just
extrapolates up or down to the required number of pixels to fill the print
area, resulting in slightly out of focus looking prints. A bit of research
into bi-cubics (?) made my head hurt and I decided my maths wasn't up to it.

Maybe I should admit defeat and look for a good off the shelf printing
package. Anyone care to suggest one? It must be capable of doing
borderless printing on my Pixma and give me full control of the layout of
the images on the page.

Alternatively, if anyone can help with my programming issues outlined above,
I may be able to turn my own software into a viable option.

Keith

Keith Sheppard wrote:
> I am looking for a better, but still free, photo printing option.
>
> My Pixma ip5000 printer was supplied with Canon's Easy-PhotoPrint
> application. I find it difficult to give an honest appraisal of this
> application without resorting to offensive language. Suffice it to say that
> when printing multiple photos on a sheet it gives you no control over which
> photo goes in which cell. Also, only orthogonal arrangements are supported.
> You cannot, for example, print a panorama along the long edge of an A4 sheet
> and two 5.5x4 prints on the other half.
>
> As a professional software developer I've had a go at adding printing to my
> own application. The interface is, of course, perfect and you can drag and
> stretch the print cells around the page to your heart's content.
> Unfortunately there are two problems I've been unable to overcome. Firstly
> I have failed to crack how to do borderless printing (despite obtaining
> Canon's software developer's kit). Secondly I'm not really up to speed with
> the mathematics of preparing images for printing. My print code just
> extrapolates up or down to the required number of pixels to fill the print
> area, resulting in slightly out of focus looking prints. A bit of research
> into bi-cubics (?) made my head hurt and I decided my maths wasn't up to it.
>
> Maybe I should admit defeat and look for a good off the shelf printing
> package. Anyone care to suggest one? It must be capable of doing
> borderless printing on my Pixma and give me full control of the layout of
> the images on the page.
>
> Alternatively, if anyone can help with my programming issues outlined above,
> I may be able to turn my own software into a viable option.
>
> Keith
>
>
I've used Paint Shop Pro for years for image editing. It
has a utility for printing multiple iamges(or multiple
copies of one image) on a sheet. There are built-in
layouts, or you can make your own.