67. Print a Contact Sheet Before You Start  65 Set Print Options
See Also  23 Change Image Date and Time
66 Print an Image
After importing a new batch of images into the Organizer, you may want to print a contact sheet so that you can decide which images are worth saving, which ones need working on, and which ones are ready to print. A contact sheet is a printout of miniature photos or thumbnails, similar to the index sheet you get when you have photos commercially printed. Under each image, you can print its filename, text caption, and file date. Such a reference can make it easy, for example, to verify that the captions, filenames, and dates for your images make sense. You can use a contact sheet to quickly mark any information that seems wrong or incomplete so that you can later change it in the catalog. KEY TERM  | Contact sheet A printout of a group of images, along with identifying labels, as a collection of miniatures. The term originates from film photography, where contact sheets are often produced to record the contents of a roll of film. |
You can select any number of images from the photo well to print on a contact sheet. The images do not have to belong to the same import batch or have the same tag or collection markers (although that might be one reason to print them together). If you don't make a selection, all the currently displayed images in the photo well are prepared for printing, along with any video thumbnails. TIP  | Organizer prints all currently displayed images and video thumbnails. If you want to display a group of related images, such as all the images of your son or daughter, use the Find bar first. (See 33 About Finding Items in the Catalog.) If the catalog is sorted by batch or folder, you can click the gray bar above a group to select all the items in that group. With either of these two methods, you might also end up selecting audio and creation files, but they'll be automatically excluded from the print job. |
1. | Select Images to Print
In the Organizer, press Shift and click the first image in the group you want to print, and then click the last image in the contiguous group. Alternatively, click the first image then press Ctrl and click each additional image you want to print.
| 2. | Click Print Photos Button
Click the Print photos button on the Shortcuts bar and click Print from the menu that appears. You can also select File, Print from the menu. You may see a warning telling you that your selection contains creations and audio files that will not be printed; click OK. You may also see a warning box listing images or video thumbnails of low resolution, and therefore, low print quality. Click OK to dismiss the warning and continue. The Print Selected Photos dialog box appears.
| 3. | Set Up Printer
If you have more than one printer, select your photo printer from the Select Printer list. Then click the Show Printer Preferences button to display the Properties dialog box for your printer. From this dialog box, you can select the type of photo paper you're using and the print quality you desire. See 65 Set Print Options for help. Click OK after making your selections to return to the Print Photos dialog box.
NOTE  | If you don't want to include a low-resolution image on the contact sheet, you can remove it from printing in step 4, or you can Cancel printing altogether. For the most part however, the warning about low-resolution images can simply be ignored, because a contact sheet is typically only for image identification and not for sharing or hanging on a wall. |
To select the printer ICC profile you want to use for printing, click the More Options button in the Print Selected Photos dialog box and select the profile from the More Options dialog box that appears. If you have installed an ICC color profile made just for your printer or for the paper you're using, you will see best results by choosing that ICC profile from this list and disabling printer color management through the printer driver, whose icon is located in the Windows Control Panel. In the absence of a printer color profile, try choosing sRGB, again with the printer driver's color management turned off. Whatever you do, do not choose your monitor's color profile (the one you created using Adobe Gamma) from this list because you are trying to select the color spectrum intended for your printer not your monitor. See 105 Ensure That What You See Is What You Get for more information about ICC color profiles. Click OK to return to the Print Selected Photos dialog box again.
TIP | Because contact sheets are typically for your reference only, you might want to use less-expensive paper when printing them. Just make sure that the paper type you plan to use is selected in your printer's Properties dialog box before printing. |
 If you use a PIM-enabled printer, and if the image you want to print contains PIM data (presumably because you captured the image using a PIM-enabled digital camera), enable the PRINT Image Matching (P.I.M.) option and/or the Exit Print option (see your printer manual for more information on which options to choose).
| 4. | Select Contact Sheet
Open the Select Type of Print drop-down list and select Contact Sheet. The selected images are arranged as small thumbnails on as many pages as needed to meet the other options you select. To review the images on other pages, use the left and right arrows below the preview window.
NOTE | To add an image to the contact sheet for printing, click the Add button at the bottom of the left pane, check the images to add from the Add Photos dialog box, and click OK. You're returned to the Print Selected Photos dialog box, where the images you added are included in the left pane. |
If you accidentally included an image you don't want to print or if you want to exclude a low-resolution image, select it from the pane on the far left side of the Print Photos dialog box and press the Delete key or click the Remove Selected Items button (the trash can). This action does not remove the image from the catalog, just from the contact sheet you are setting up to print.
| 5. | Set Layout Options
Control the size of each image by changing the number of thumbnails you want to appear in each row of the contact sheet using the box marked Columns.
Choose whether you want to display the Date, Caption, and Filename below each image by enabling the appropriate check boxes. You can also print the Page Numbers on each page of a multipage printout.
TIP | Before printing, you can view and change an individual image's caption, filename, or file date using the Properties pane. See 31 Add a Text Caption or Note and 23 Change Image Date and Time for help. |
| 6. | Click Print
To print the contact sheet using the options you have selected, click Print.
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