Terrible Printing Dialog in Media Pro -Always Resets Choices

I am a long-time user of iView MediaPro and then Expression Media, and I desperately want to be a user of Media Pro, but it is not ready - especially its Print Dialog.

Because of the way Media Pro has written its Print Dialog, it resets all options, every time we print. If you always print out a Media Sheet, and print hundreds of them a day, it doesn't care - it always defaults to Contact Sheet. Then, to print a Media Sheet, you select Media Sheet, and it slowly switches over and displays your new setup in the preview pane. Further, it will NEVER remember the settings you use: margins, grid, options, etc. - and these have to be entered over and over again, every single time you print. This is an enormous waste of time, as we print dozens of sheets per day, and every change takes so much time to build the preview, etc.. Just as Photoshop allows us to do amazing things printing image files, Media Pro should allow us to print catalogs, prints, indexes of media - quickly and easily!

I have written Tech Support a letter, below, asking to please improve this area of Media Pro. For professionals who work regularly with pictures and visual media, print settings should be remembered. Even better, allow us to save several "Default Custom Choices" that could be selected with a click, and then remember ALL settings within that choice (whether it is a Media or Contact Sheet, Margins, Grid, Options, Page Setup - everything!).

Here is my letter to Tech Suport

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Hello,

We are long-time users of iView MediaPro and Expression Media.
We would like to be able to use your new Media Pro program, but there is a problem with the Print Dialog that is a tremendous drag on our workflow.

We print hundreds of index sheets (contact sheets) using iView MediaPro, and we are having a problem doing this using the new Media Pro program.

Here is the specific issue in Media Pro:
When we set up to print using Media Pro's Media Sheet or Contact Sheet, the program will never remember the last settings we used to print. Every time we go to print the same exact format contact sheet, we have to enter again: Margins, Grid, Size, etc.. It also will not even remember whether we were printing Contact Sheets or Media Sheets, and when you switch between these two choices, it takes a very long time for the program to go to the other Sheet type, wasting still more time. We print up to one hundred times a day, and having to do this dozens of times every day (every time we print a Contact Sheet or Media Sheet) is an annoying and wasteful procedure, and it takes a huge chunk out of our productivity.

If the program could simply open up to the Print Dialog, with the last settings still as they were, it would save an immense amount of time for users.

It should remember all settings for what was printed last:
1. Media Sheet or Contact Sheet
2. Margins
3. Grid
4. Size
5. Other options: File Name, High Res. Thumbnails, etc.
6. Page Setup
7. Print Range

As a long-time working photographer, printer, and media professional, Media Pro should not force us to set / reset every parameter when we print. This is a very large oversight in a media organization program. Most media professionals have to repeat the same tasks over and over - and this includes printing for our clients.

Otherwise, we love the new version of Media Pro - but could you please include a way for the program to remember how you printed last?

Thank you.

roboticon

2011年08月29日 14:01

I am answering my own post because I cannot believe that I am the only one who is frustrated by the Printing Dialog never remembering what I did last, and never remembering the margins that I set, and having to reconfigure the grid every time I go to print. That is what I use Media Pro for - printing contacts / index prints - shouldn't it be able to at least remember what margins I set, since I have used the same ones for months on end???

Really - no one else prints sheets of pictures to give clients?

I am alone . . .

sdwind

2011年10月25日 13:43

No, you're not the only one. I'd much rather use Media Pro for I find it easier to read and like the info I can include below the thumbnails. But printing is the last thing you can do easily. So I've stayed with Lightroom. Not easy for me to read, but the print module is so easy to use.

Sue

2011年10月26日 04:27

Thanks for your post, Sue,

I'd love to switch to Lightroom or even Aperture, because the editing controls are superior! I just can't believe that neither of these two allow you to easily arrange pictures in a grid to print out, like iView MediaPro allows. I can put together a great "book" or series of contact sheets (index prints) that looks impressive using MediaPro. Lightroom and Aperture do not allow you to look at the pictures and move groups of them anywhere nearly as easily as MediaPro.

If the new Media Pro could fix their printing deficit, it would be perfectly functional for what I need. As it is, I just have to "accept" that it is going to be a very difficult struggle each and every time I have to print out contact sheet-style pages. It never remembers how I print - I have to set the grid, the margins every time I print, even though I never print anything but the one size. It is a major pain in the _ _ _ !!! It is just a dumb oversight - a professionally designed program for photographic professionals would NOT be written to make you work this hard, when you have a specific job set that you do again and again. Printing prints and contact sheets is what we do as photographers, how nice that they make it harder to do something that the program PURPORTS to HELP you do.

Thanks again, and perhaps they will respond someday, just once (but I doubt it, and I will NOT purchase the new version of Media Pro until I hear from them). I will simply carry on with iView MediaPro, which at least is mostly bug-free.

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