Printing contact sheets (thumbnail sheets)

Top  Previous  Next

 

Apart from printing a single photo you can also use IDimager to print contact sheets. A contact sheet is a page with multiple small versions of images on it. These are also known as index sheets or thumbnail sheets.

 

First open the collection with the images you'd like to print. Then select one or more thumbnails by clicking the thumb while holding the [Ctrl] key down. The chapter “Collection Viewer” describes more selection options. Finally, after selecting your thumbnails, press [Ctrl]+[P] to open the print dialog..

 

Once you made your selection the printing dialog will open. If needed then activate the tab "Contact Sheet":

 

_img162

 

The following options are available:

 

Portrait

Select this option if you want you contact sheet to be portrait oriented.

 

Landscape

Select this option if you want you contact sheet to be landscape oriented.

 

Print Header

Select this option if you want to print a page header. You can enter the header at the bottom of the screen in tab sheet “Header and Footer”.

 

Print Footer

Select this option if you want to print a page footer. You can enter the footer at the bottom of the screen in tab sheet “Header and Footer”.

 

Quality Scaling

This option allows you to set the quality of the print out. IDimager will send a page to the printer of the size relative to the printers full page resolution. E.g. the printer accepts pages at 6000x9000px. If this setting is set to 50% then IDimager will send a page of 3000x4500px and scale it to full page. The higher the quality scale, the more memory required by the printer and your computer. Setting a value between 40 and 60% will do if quality is not the main concern.

 

Page per page printing

Select this option if every generated page should become a new print job. This is recommended for printers that have very small buffer memory.

 

Columns

Select the number of columns you want to appear on the contact sheet. by entering the number in the Columns field. The maximum number of columns is 99.

 

Use specific thumb width

Select this option if you need your thumbs to be of a specific width. You can enter a width value in inches or CMs; depending on the measurement system specified in the main options dialog (Tools -> Options).

 

Use specific thumb height

Select this option if you need your thumbs to be of a specific height. You can enter a height value in inches or CMs; depending on the measurement system specified in the main options dialog (Tools -> Options).

 

Process Mode

Here you can select whether the thumbs should be printed from left to right (second thumb is located right of the first thumb) or top down (second thumb is located below the first thumb)

.

Spacing

Enter the number of pixels you want as a white space between the columns.

 

Add a frame to each image

Select this option if you want each thumb on the contact sheet to be surrounded by a small frame. This makes it easy to cut out the photos later.

 

Print image numbers for images

Select this option if you want IDimager to print a sequence number for each thumb on the contact sheet. This makes it easier to identify the order on the page.

 

Print file names for images

Select this option if you want the file name to appear below each thumb.

Print image descriptions

Select this option if you want to print the images description below each thumb. Keep in mind that large descriptions below a small thumb may consume a lot of paper space.

 

Print portrait images rotated

Select this option if you want portrait images to be printed in a landscape manner (rotated). This way you create a more balanced page.

 

Stretch images if too small

Select this option if you want images that are smaller than the thumb size to be stretched to fit the fill thumb.

 

Header and Footer

This is where you can enter text that should be placed on top of the page (header) of on the bottom of the page (footer). The header will be filled with the collections name by default. The footer will be saved for future use.

 

You can define separate fonts for the header and footer by clicking the Fonts option in the print dialog's toolbar.

 

clip0272

 

On Image Captions

Optionally define one or more caption titles that should be printed on the thumbs.

 

Margins

Use this tab sheet to specify the top, bottom, left and right margins. The margins are entered in percentages, relative to the full page (= 100%).

 

Background

Here you can specify a custom background color for the page or specify a graphic that should be used as the background image.

 

Optionally click the button “Print Preview” option in the toolbar to see what your contact sheet will look like. There are two preview modes; the normal preview (Ctrl+P) and a quick preview (Ctrl+Q). The Quick Preview will be a preview based on a down-scaled size. It is much faster to display, hence its name.

 

_img164

a print preview sample where portrait images are printed rotated