Contact sheets go back to the film darkroom, but they’re still useful — quick-reference proofs for clients or editors, project submission sheets for photography courses, or visual indexes filed alongside scanned negatives.
There are several ways to make a digital contact sheet. I’ve covered the Lightroom method (good layout control, output to print or JPEG) and the ImageMagick method (most granular control, command-line required). The Photoshop method covered here is the quickest of the three — a built-in automation that produces a solid result in a few clicks.
The tradeoff is limited customization. There’s no control over background colors, and the caption options are essentially filename-or-nothing. If you need more control over those aspects, the Lightroom or ImageMagick methods are better choices. But if you have Photoshop and want a contact sheet fast, this is the way to go.
Step 1: Open Contact Sheet II
In Photoshop, go to:
File > Automate > Contact Sheet II
Step 2: Choose your source images
The Source Images section at the top of the dialog lets you specify which images to use. The simplest approach is to have all your images in one folder and select that folder here. But there are several options:
- Files — select individual files using the built-in browser.
- Folder — use a designated folder, with an option to include subfolders.
- Bridge — pre-select images in Bridge, which lets you use Bridge’s filtering and sorting tools before handing off to Photoshop.
- Open Documents — use images already open as tabs in Photoshop. This option only appears if you have tabs open.
Once you’ve selected your source, you can click OK with the default settings if you just want a basic contact sheet without any further adjustments.
Step 3: Document settings
The Document section sets the canvas dimensions and color profile — essentially the paper choice if this were an analog contact sheet.
The defaults are set up for an 8×10 inch sheet — a standard contact sheet size from film days and a reasonable starting point. A few common adjustments:
- Sheet size — change to Letter (8.5×11 inches) or A4 (210×297mm) if you’re printing.
- Orientation — there’s no explicit portrait/landscape toggle, but setting the width greater than the height gives you landscape orientation.
- Color profile — sRGB by default, which is fine for most purposes. Change it if you have a specific print profile you need to use.
There are no options here for background color or image borders — those simply aren’t available in Contact Sheet II.
Step 4: Thumbnail settings
The Place setting controls the tiling order: Across first (default) fills left-to-right across each row before moving to the next, like reading order. Down first fills top-to-bottom down each column instead.
The Columns and Rows settings determine how many thumbnails fit per page — the default is 5 columns × 6 rows (30 images per sheet). Thumbnail size is scaled automatically to fit: more rows and columns means smaller thumbnails, fewer means larger. There’s no direct thumbnail size control.
If you have more images than fit on one sheet, Contact Sheet II creates additional sheets automatically — it doesn’t try to squeeze more images in by making them smaller or drop images that don’t fit.
Step 5: Caption settings
Caption options are limited: filename (with extension) or nothing. There’s no option for other metadata fields, and text color can’t be changed. Font and size are adjustable, which is about the extent of it.
To remove captions entirely, uncheck the box at the far left of the Caption section.
If you need captions showing exposure data, custom text, or anything beyond the filename, the Lightroom or ImageMagick methods offer considerably more control.
Step 6: Build
Click OK. Photoshop processes the images and builds the contact sheet — or multiple sheets if your image count exceeds the per-page limit. Each sheet opens as a separate tab in Photoshop, where it’s a standard image file you can edit further, add a title to, or save in any format.
Things worth knowing
Saving presets
The Load, Save, and Reset buttons in the lower-left of the dialog let you save and recall setting presets. Useful if you regularly produce contact sheets at different sizes or grid layouts — set up your configurations once and load them as needed rather than adjusting from scratch each time.
Starting from Adobe Bridge
If you’re using Bridge to sort and filter your source images, you can launch Contact Sheet II directly from there rather than switching to Photoshop first:
Tools > Photoshop > Contact Sheet IIThe options are identical — it’s just a more streamlined path if Bridge is already part of your selection workflow.
