What a photo contact sheet is
In film photography, a contact sheet was made by laying a roll of negatives directly on photo paper and exposing it, so every frame appeared at actual size on one page. Photographers marked the keepers with a grease pencil. A photo contact sheet today does the same job digitally: many photos on one image so you can compare them, pick favorites and share a set without sending dozens of files.
Contact sheets are still how many photographers run a client selection: send the sheet, the client replies with the frames they like by position (top row, second photo), and you edit only those. It saves time for both sides and keeps unedited full-resolution files private until the selection is made.
Contact sheet layouts in this tool
The grid layouts hold a fixed number of photos; anything beyond that is left off the sheet. For a bigger shoot, make several 3×3 sheets and number them, or use Horizontal or Vertical to put every photo in a single strip.
| Layout | Photos per sheet | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| 9 Grid (default) | 9 (3 × 3) | Classic proof sheet |
| 4 Grid | 4 (2 × 2) | A shortlist |
| 2 Grid | 2 | Picking between two frames |
| Horizontal | All, in one row | A film-strip style sequence |
| Vertical | All, in one column | Scrolling on a phone |
Tips for a clean contact sheet
Every cell on the sheet is the same size, set by your largest photo, and each photo fills its cell. Mixing portrait and landscape frames on one sheet stretches some of them, so make separate sheets for each orientation, or crop them to one ratio first. Number your sheets in the file name (sheet-01, sheet-02) so clients can refer to them easily.
- Resize full-resolution camera files first; nine 24 MP photos make a very large sheet.
- Add photos in shooting order so clients can refer to frames by position.
- The sheet doesn't add file names or captions, so keep a list of the order you used.
- Use 0 px spacing for a seamless strip, or 10–20 px for a gallery look.
