Picsha Print Server¶

Picsha Print Server is a small Windows program that prints what Picsha Lab sends it. It runs on a PC in your lab that can reach your printers and minilab hot folders, makes outbound connections to Picsha only, and opens no ports.

Requirements¶

• Windows 10 or 11, on an Intel/AMD or ARM PC. There is no Mac version yet.
• The printers installed on that PC, and access to any minilab hot folders, by local path or network share.
• The PC stays signed in and awake. The program runs in the signed-in user's session, so a dedicated PC is better than someone's laptop.

Installing¶

1. In the Lab, open Settings → Printers and click Download Picsha Print Server (administrators only; the version and size are shown under the button). The file is PicshaPrintServerSetup-.exe, signed by Graphx, Inc. If the button is not there, ask Picsha support for the installer.
2. Run it. It installs into Program Files and adds a Start Menu shortcut.
3. Start Picsha Print Server. Its icon appears in the system tray.

IT departments can install silently with the MSI and msiexec /i … /qn.

Pairing with your organization¶

1. In Picsha Lab, an administrator opens Settings → Printers and clicks Add print server. A pairing code appears. It works once and expires after 15 minutes.
2. On the PC, double-click the tray icon, or right-click it and choose Pair with Picsha….
3. Enter the Service address: your organization's Lab address, for example https://yourorg.dam.picsha.com/lab or https://yourorg.lab.picsha.com/lab.
4. Enter the Pairing code and click Pair.

The tray status changes to Online, waiting for jobs, and the print server's card in the Lab shows Online with the PC's printers listed beneath it within half a minute. The pairing is stored on the PC for the signed-in Windows user; nobody needs to type the code again.

If pairing fails, the message says why: the address must start with https://, the code is 8 characters, or the service could not be reached at that address.

The tray menu¶

Right-click the tray icon for:

• The status line: Not paired, Connecting…, Online, waiting for jobs, Paused from the console, Printing job … to …, Writing order … to its hot folder, Cannot reach the service. Retrying., Pairing was revoked. Pair again.
• Pair with Picsha… or Pair again…
• Start when I sign in: tick it so the print server starts with Windows.
• Update to …: shown when a newer version is offered. See below.
• Printers…: this PC's printers and their presets.
• Open log: the program's log file, useful when asking for support.
• Quit.

Capturing driver settings¶

A preset (set up in the Lab under the printer's queue) holds the driver settings for one paper. They are captured once, on the PC:

1. Right-click the tray icon and choose Printers…. The window lists each queue's presets with whether settings have been captured and which preset is loaded.
2. Select a preset and click Capture settings…. The printer driver's own Printing Preferences dialog opens. Choose the paper size, media type, quality and anything else that paper needs, then click OK.

The settings are stored on the preset and applied to every job routed to it. The printer's defaults are untouched.

Set as loaded now in the same window tells Picsha which paper is in the printer, the same as Loaded now in the Lab. Stop tracking media sets the queue to Any preset.

Printing¶

Jobs arrive on their own. The print server downloads each file, applies the preset's settings, and hands it to the queue, or writes the minilab's order files into the hot folder. Photos fill the sheet by default. PDF documents are rasterized page by page and fitted to the sheet. Office documents print from the PDF saved with them. Microsoft Print to PDF queues are written without the Save dialog.

The print server never prints a job twice on its own. A job interrupted while sending shows Check printer in the Lab, where an operator decides. See Printing.

Updating¶

When a newer version is available, the tray shows a balloon once and keeps Update to … in its menu. Choosing it downloads the installer through Picsha, checks that it is signed by Graphx, Inc., asks Windows for permission once, installs, and restarts the print server. The Lab's Printers page shows Update to … available on the print server's card until it is done. Your administrator can pin the version your lab runs from the Lab's Printers page.

Troubleshooting¶