Developing a Working Process:

Contact Sheet to Print

Introduction

Analog Contact Sheets (left) | Digital Contact Sheets (middle) | Prints (right)

Images are shot and contact sheets or edited digital contact sheets are made. Edit. And then, possibly more contact sheets or edited digital contact sheets. Or work prints – made in the darkroom and/or digital kiosk machine prints. More editing. And then – maybe a photograph.

Such a working process requires the photographer to be active and engaged with their work throughout, and sharing that may be beneficial not only to one’s own work, but also others as they develop and work through their own process.

Read the following discussion and instructions on making Contact Sheets as you begin working on the upcoming Image-Making Assignments.

Connection

To accomplish this module's learning objectives, we will complete the following activities:

Complete Weekly Photographic Work in preparation to submit for In Sight: Developing a Photographic Portfolio (Graded Image-Making Assignments)

Making Digital Contact Sheets

Making Digital Contact Sheets can be done automatically in Adobe Photoshop.

It will be necessary to set-up a folder to automatically-generate the images for the contact sheet. It is important to make sure the images are right-reading so that all of the images can be seen in the Same Orientation on an 8.5" (width) x 11″ (height) print.

In Photoshop, click on File, scroll down to Automate, and scroll over to Contact Sheet.

Set Document Dimensions at 7.5″ x 10″ (for predominantly vertical source images) or 10″ x 7.5″ (for predominantly vertical source images) at 300 ppi and in Adobe RGB (1998) mode.
For a 12-up Contact Sheet from Digital Files, it will be necessary to set-up the document so that the Thumbnails are placed in Columns of 4 and Rows of 3 with Auto-Spacing.
For a 6-up Edited Contact Sheet, it will be necessary to set-up the document so that the Thumbnails are placed in Columns of 3 and Rows of 2 with Auto-Spacing.
The Filename As Caption can be checked so that the file name is printed below each image on the contact sheet to identify original digital files.

Once you’ve selected all of the Contact Sheet Document Parameters, click OK to generate the Contact Sheet.
After the Contact Sheet has been created, it can be Printed and then Saved as its own Photoshop file.