Picture Package and Contact Sheet in Paint by Zaweba

Two old darkroom ideas live on in Paint by Zaweba. Picture Package puts several copies of a photo on one page, the way a school photographer fills a sheet with different sizes. Contact Sheet turns a folder of pictures into pages of small thumbnails, so you can see a whole shoot at once. Both create a new document, which you can check, adjust and then print.

Picture Package

Picture Package places 2, 4, 6, 9 or 16 pictures per page, or fixed sizes such as 6x4, 7x5, wallet and ID 35x45 mm, among others. The page can be A4, Letter or A3. Because the result is a new document rather than a print job, you see the whole sheet before anything goes to the printer, and you can still edit it.

The most common use is ID photos at home. Take a plain portrait against a light wall, crop it to the right proportions, and use the ID 35x45 mm size to fill a sheet. You get several photos from one print, ready to cut out. Always check the current rules for the document you are applying for, since they set details such as head size and background that a layout tool can't judge for you.

Family prints are another. A grandparent may want a 7x5 for a frame and a few wallet sizes for a purse; a package lets you print them together on one sheet of photo paper instead of three.

Contact Sheet

Contact Sheet works from a folder. It lays the images out as thumbnails across pages, each with its file name as a caption. The captions are text layers, which means you can edit them afterwards: add a note, correct a name, or change the font for the whole sheet.

Photographers use contact sheets to review a shoot or to show a client the full set so they can choose by file name. Teachers and clubs use them to print a set of class photos. They are also a tidy way to archive a folder on paper, or to check that a batch export did what you expected.

Tips for good sheets

Prepare the source first. For a picture package, crop and retouch the photo at full size before building the sheet, so every copy benefits. For a contact sheet, rename files sensibly if the captions will be read by someone else, since "IMG_4031" means little to a client.

Print at actual size. Picture Package sizes are real measurements, so make sure the print dialog isn't scaling the page to fit. If your printer driver has its own scaling option, turn it off.

Cut carefully. Crop marks and a sharp trimmer make a big difference to ID photos, which are often rejected for being the wrong size by a millimetre or two.

From sheet to printer

Both tools hand off to File > Print, with its live preview, paper choice and copies. Contact Sheet also pairs nicely with Save as PDF, giving you a document that is easy to email to a client for selection. And because each sheet is an ordinary Paint by Zaweba document, you can add a title, a logo or notes with the normal text and shape tools before you print.

It all happens offline, so family photos and client shoots stay on your own computer.