Using PrintRipper™: Helpful Tips and Tricks

Part I
by Christopher Rosado
Developer, Allen Christopher Software

So... What does Printripper™ Do?

The best place to start is at the beginning. What is the task we want PrintRipper™ to perform? You could be shooting an event that requires high-volume, on-demand printing, such as Santa shots at the mall. It could be a corporate event, gate-style photography, Proms–you name it– where you need to deliver just about every photo that you take.
You may not be in a print on-demand situation but still need a quick and easy way to batch your photos for print or process them for digital delivery. Either way, PrintRipper™ gives you simple solution to set your desired output parameters and process your photos 'till the cows come home.

PrintRipper™ does a lot more than just crop and output your photos. You can batch your Chroma key (green screen) photos, add borders (Photo Frame), and Watermark instantly, as you choose. Before we cover these features, let's discuss getting your photos into PrintRipper™ for processing. The First thing you would want to do is set up a hot folder in PrintRipper™. To do that, click the plus (+) button located in the lower-left of your PrintRipper™ window. That should trigger your Printer Setup Dialog.

In the Printer Setup Dialog you'll need to:

1. Choose the printer you wish to use for this hot folder.
   
   
2. Set your printer's paper size, margins, quality, paper tray, and anything else you would like to configure for your output.
   
   ***Note*** Even if you intend to output digital files instead of prints, you must still select a printer.
   
   
3. If you would like, you can set your Landscape or Portrait settings. You don't have to worry too much about this as PrintRipper™ will read your camera's IPTC orientation to determine if you shot a photo as a Portrait or Landscape and rotate your image as needed.
   If you are using a camera that does not include IPTC orientation data, this may present a challenge as you would need to make sure you are consistent with your shooting (in other words, set up a folder as landscape and shoot only landscape, or vise-versa).
   
   
4. After you set your printer up, hit the "OK" button. The next screen you'll see is the folder configuration screen.
   
   

There are three elements you must complete before you can save your settings:

1. Print Folder (your "hot folder")– You can choose a folder that exists or create a new one. If you really want to get fancy, you can even choose a network (shared) folder. Hmm..... Did that last suggestion get you thinking about more intricate setups? I hope so!
   
   
2. Select Your Printer– Yes, we did set up a printer already.... That was mostly to tell the printer what to do. This time, we're telling Printripper™ what printer we will have it print to.
   
   
3. Select your Print Size– select your intended output size from the pop-up menu.
   
   

After you've completed the steps above, you want to set two very important options:

1. Move Images to Archive Folder– if this option is NOT checked, original files WILL BE DELETED after they are processed. I don't need to repeat that, do I? If his option IS CHECKED, a folder called "Archive" will be created within your hot folder and will collect your original files as they are processed.
   
   
2. Save Composites–this will save a digital image file for you INSTEAD of printing the photo if checked. It's a toggle-switch: checked=save to file. Unchecked=print the image.

At this point, you can save your settings and your PrintRipper™ hot folder is ready for action!

Tethering/Remote Capture

We've been tethering cameras in here since 2001. Most, if not all professional cameras can tether to a computer. Canon and Nikon make their own special flavors of tethering software, each taking advantage of the features specific to their respective cameras. Some tethering software can be found free of charge or for a nominal fee. There are many options and Google is your friend!

 

Wireless

We love to photograph wirelessly. Both Nikon an Canon have wireless options available (note that Nikon's solution works with select cameras) and, of course, there's our inexpensive favorite–EyeFi. There is a downside to photographing wirelessly, namely, wandering out of range. All aforementioned solutions do resume transfers once back in range. The other downside is transfer speed. If you plan to shoot high quality jpegs with your 12 megapixel camera, expect a little bit of a delay in your wireless transfers.

 

Media Card Readers

You may decide that you have no need or desire to tether or go wireless. A simple media card reader will do just fine. You can set up your photos to download directly to your PrintRipper™ hot folder.

Whatever method you choose to transfer your photos to your computer, all you have to do is set your transfer options to point to a PrintRipper™ hot folder (or, if you prefer, point PrintRipper™ to your transfer folder). As your photos are moved into your hot folder, PrintRipper™ will begin to process them

Next week, we'll cover more in-depth tricks dealing with folders, setting up intricate green screen shots as well as borders. In the mean time, I hope you've been inspired to play a little more with PrintRipper™!

PrintRipper™ is available now at our Online store.

• Download v. 1.0 Mac / Windows
• View the Online Manual here.