Expert: LizaL - 10/31/2004

Question
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Followup To
Question -
Thank you, this has worked.  Do you always have to put the photos you want on the contact sheet in a folder before you run contact sheet command?  In photoshop elements I can use picture package .  At first it gives me a layout with the same photo.  then all I do is double click an image and can choose another image from any folder.  By doing this I can end up with a layout with different photos on it.  Can this be done with Photoshop7
Thanks
Toinette
Hi
I have Photoshop7 and am trying to print multiple different images on one A4 page.  I have tried CONTACT SHEET11 but get multiple images that are only thumbnail size.  I have tried Picture package and get the layouts I want but can't get more than the one image repeated.  I have used photoshop elements and here I can get 1 page with different photos on it.. Can you tell me if this can be done with Photoshop7 and if so how?

Thank you
Answer -
Hi there!

This is kind of strange and I can see why you're frustrated, because the Contact Sheet II option is supposed to take images from a folder and automatically apply them to whatever page size you select, in whatever layout you select.

I walked through these steps myself, and had no trouble doing it. In fact, I use this automation quite a bit. It's bizarre that you're only getting thumbnails, so check that the folder you're generating contact sheets from doesn't contain any images that might be construed by the computer as thumbnails -- that is, make sure the folder you're pulling from contains images that are all the correct size that you need, and only those images.

Contact Sheeet II  also has the option to include subfolders, so if by chance you have some unwanted images in a folder within your folder, it might be including them as well. So also make sure you don't have "include subfolders" checked when you set up the Contact Sheet II options.

Let me ask you a question now -- are you using a Mac or a PC? I'm wondering if you need to trash your preferences for Photoshop, if you're using a Mac. It almost sounds like something's wrong with the program itself, provided you're using the automation correctly.

If you don't get this solved, please post back and tell me the exact steps you go through when you try to do a contact sheet, and we'll go from there.

Hope this helps!

Lisa

Answer
Hi Toinette,

Great, I'm glad I could help you!

To answer your question about Contact Sheet II, yes, you need to keep your pictures that you intend for your contact sheet in a folder all to themselves. Then when you run the automation, all Photoshop has to do is pick those particular images and fit them on the contact sheet. So the answer to that is yes.

About Picture Package, you can do the same thing in Photoshop 7 as you're doing in Elements. Go to the File pulldown menu, select Picture Package (second choice from the bottom), and first choose your layout. Once the dialog box opens, you can go through the choices to set up your package, and you can do it just as you're doing in Elements.

At the very top of the dialog box you'll see Source, and your choices in the popup menu are File or Folder. So if you have File selected, by pressing the Choose button, you can manually choose which files (pictures) you want to use. If you have Folder selected, you can direct Photoshop to pull all the images from a folder, just like when you're using Contact Sheet II.

If you're creating a Picture Package for the first time, the first picture you choose will appear repeated in the layout on the right, in the Picture Package dialog box. But if you want to swap one picture for another, you can just click on the one you want to swap. Then you can navigate to where you've stored the picture you really want, select it, and it will show up in the other picture's place.

Don't forget too, that in the setup dialog box for Picture Package, you can go to the Layout popup menu and select all different sizes for layouts, and different sizes of paper, too.

I hope this answers your questions! If not, please post back and tell me, and I'll be glad to help you out.

Lisa