Expert: LizaL - 3/20/2007

Question
QUESTION: I take pictures at preschools and do a layout in photoshop to put each individual picture on and 8x10 photo, all evenly spaced and evenly sized.  I'm looking for an easier way to do this, possibly a premade template.  I see a lot of programs that have templates, but not with 25-45 images.  Any ideas?
ANSWER: Hi Tery,

I think you could benefit from Photoshop's Picture Package option. I believe this feature requires at least Photoshop 7; I use CS and it's in that version, for sure.

Anyway, what this does is take a single file, or a folder of files, and automatically lays them out in the template that you specify.

Picture Package is found under the File pulldown menu > Automate > Picture Package. You'll see in this dialog box that there are a lot of different layouts you can choose from:
http://little-works.com/all_experts/ppackage.png

So the idea is, gather all the pictures you want to process in one folder, and put it in a convenient place. I use the desktop a lot simply because it's easy to see. Then in Photoshop, after opening Picture Package, you choose the layout you want according to your page size you'll be printing from. Then you navigate to that folder, click OK, and let Photoshop do the rest. The images will be placed evenly on the page size you request, and you don't have to worry about spacing, or sizing.

Of course, there are a lot more options than what I've described, and you'll no doubt want to play around with them to get the best results for your projects. But that's the basic operation for Picture Package.

Here's a little visual; to keep the movie size small I've only demonstrated two pictures, but hopefully you'll get the idea.
http://little-works.com/all_experts/picpackage.mov

If you find this doesn't work for you, post back. There are quite a few automatic features in Photoshop that you might find useful.

Hope this helps!

Lisa

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks, Lisa!  However in photoshop 7, which is what I have, the picture package only brings in one picture and puts it on the sheet 20 times!  I need 20 (or more) different pictures on the same sheet!!!!

Answer
How about Contact Sheet II? It's under the same pulldown menu (File > Automate > Contact Sheet II), and it's pretty self-explanatory. You adjust your page size to what your output sheet will be, then choose your folder of images, and let Photoshop automate the rest.

Like this (using 3 images):
http://little-works.com/all_experts/contactsheet.mov

That will definitely place each image on one sheet, as well as size them to fit according to the page measurements. It also adds a file name that you can change if you want it to correspond to your particular project, or if not, it will use the picture's original name.

Let me know how this works for you --

Lisa