Lightroom print templates

[DanK]

This morning, prompted by another thread, I looked to see how many settings are retained by Lightroom print templates. There is no one answer because there are some setting one rarely uses (at least, some that I rarely use, for example, for multiple images on a page). For the printing I do, there are roughly two dozen settings that are preserved: 8 in the printer's firmware and the rest in Lightroom itself. For example, it retains this from the firmware:

• Selection of printer and driver
• type of print (photo)
• media
• print quality
• paper size
• paper source
• color management (turned off)
• chroma optimizer setting

In the software itself, it includes:

• rotation
• 8 image size and margin settings (there are more, but this is what I use)
• print resolution
• 2 settings for output sharpening (amount and media)
• rendering intent
• ICC (manage color setting)

With respect to output sharpening: it works like some other print software in giving you an option of levels. Lightroom offers 3; I believe QImage offers 5. I've never found reason to move it off "standard" when using coated papers.

This is why I have posted elsewhere that LR makes printing so easy. Every time I work through this list for a new paper and stock size, if I expect to use that paper again, I simply tell LR to store the settings as a template, which entails only one or two mouse clicks and typing a template name. Then simply clicking on the template loads all of the settings above.

I often have two for a given paper and size: one for margins that maximize the print size, and a second that expands the margin to allow for a signature. If you will print B&W often enough to want a template, that would require a separate template, as several settings change. In LR, color management is changed to "printer controls", and the B&W photo option is turned on in the firmware. This automatically grays out the color management options in the firmware. However, I print mono rarely enough that I just select the relevant color template and make the needed changes manually.

[LenR]

I concur. All my printing performed thru LR.......