Creating a Contact Sheet in Photoshop
Contact sheets are useful to show clients how their finished photographs will look. Contact sheets are sheets filled with all the photos from the shoot. Contact sheets are easy to produce and will make your photography business much more professional.
What is a Contact Sheet?A contact sheet is similar to a negative but in positive colors. This contains thumbnail images of all the photos from the shoot. This makes it very easy for your clients to look at the photos that you have chosen and decide which ones they want to order. These are also sometimes known as an index sheet.
Digital Contact SheetsWhen using software like Photoshop it's actually very easy to create contact sheets. This is simply a matter of selecting the images that you want to include and then allowing the wizard to add them in place. These can then be printed out on any photo printer. The photo contact sheets can be printed to a large sheet of paper or a much smaller 4"x6" photograph if you prefer.
Deciding Which to OrderThe best advantage of a contact sheet is that it gives your clients an opportunity to look at the photos before they have ordered them. They can then decide exactly which photos they want to order and have printed larger.
What is a Contact Sheet?A contact sheet is similar to a negative but in positive colors. This contains thumbnail images of all the photos from the shoot. This makes it very easy for your clients to look at the photos that you have chosen and decide which ones they want to order. These are also sometimes known as an index sheet.
Digital Contact SheetsWhen using software like Photoshop it's actually very easy to create contact sheets. This is simply a matter of selecting the images that you want to include and then allowing the wizard to add them in place. These can then be printed out on any photo printer. The photo contact sheets can be printed to a large sheet of paper or a much smaller 4"x6" photograph if you prefer.
Deciding Which to OrderThe best advantage of a contact sheet is that it gives your clients an opportunity to look at the photos before they have ordered them. They can then decide exactly which photos they want to order and have printed larger.
Creating a Contact Sheet
- Do either of the following:
- (Photoshop) Choose File > Automate > Contact Sheet II.
- (Bridge) Select a folder of images or specific image files. From the Bridge menu, choose Tools > Photoshop > Contact Sheet II. Unless you select specific images, the contact sheet will include all the images currently displayed in Adobe Bridge. You can select a different images after the Contact Sheet II dialog box opens.
- In the Contact Sheet II dialog box, specify the images to include by choosing an option from the Use menu.Note: If you select Bridge, all images currently in Bridge are used unless you selected images before choosing the Contact Sheet II command. Images in subfolders are not included.
- In the Document area, specify the dimensions and color data for the contact sheet. Select Flatten All Layers to create a contact sheet with all images and text on a single layer. Deselect Flatten All Layers to create a contact sheet in which each image is on a separate layer and each caption is on a separate text layer.
- In the Thumbnails area, specify layout options for the thumbnail previews.
- For Place, choose whether to arrange thumbnails across first (from left to right, then top to bottom) or down first (from top to bottom, then left to right).
- Enter the number of columns and rows that you want per contact sheet.
- Select Use Auto-Spacing to let Photoshop automatically space the thumbnails in the contact sheet. If you deselect Use Auto-Spacing, you can specify the vertical and horizontal space around the thumbnails.
- Select Rotate For Best Fit to rotate the images, regardless of their orientation, so they fit efficiently on a contact sheet.
- Select Use Filename As Caption to label the thumbnails using their source image filenames. Use the menu to specify a caption font and font size.
- Click OK.