Contact Sheet Software: Every Option Compared

Almost every piece of photo software can make a contact sheet, which is part of the problem: the question is never whether a tool can do it, but how long it takes and what you get at the end. This is an honest comparison of the options, including where ours is the wrong choice.

The short version

Lightroom Classic

The most capable option on the list. The Print module's Contact Sheet / Grid layout gives you rows, columns, cell spacing, filename and metadata captions, an identity plate, and a live preview, and a saved template makes every sheet after the first one fast. Pick it if your images are already in a catalogue with edits applied. Skip it if they are not — importing 400 frames to print a page of thumbnails is the expensive part. Note that the cloud-based Lightroom has no Print module at all. Full walkthrough: how to make a contact sheet in Lightroom.

Photoshop

Contact Sheet II, under File → Automate, builds a sheet straight from a folder with filename captions. It is quick to start and gives you no live preview, no header or footer, and a separate document for every page. Pick it for a one-off when Photoshop is already open. Full walkthrough: how to make a contact sheet in Photoshop.

Adobe Bridge

Bridge's Output workspace writes PDF contact sheets from whatever you are browsing, with templates for the grid and the captions. If Bridge is part of your culling routine it is a sensible route; almost nobody opens it just for this.

Capture One

Capture One's print dialog can lay out a grid of images with captions drawn from metadata. It makes sense for studios already shooting tethered into it, where the sheet is a by-product of a session that is already organised. As a reason to buy Capture One, it is not.

Photo Mechanic

Photo Mechanic is the ingest and culling tool of choice for a lot of news, sports, and event photographers, and its print options include contact sheets captioned from metadata. If you already use it to cull, printing the sheet from it is natural. It is not a layout tool, and does not pretend to be.

What is built into macOS and Windows

Preview can print up to 16 images a page, the Photos app has a Contact Sheet print layout for photos in your library, and Windows' Print Pictures dialog has a fixed 35-a-page contact sheet. All three are free and already installed, and none of them gives you real control over labels — which is the whole point of a contact sheet that somebody else has to answer. Step by step: how to make a contact sheet on Mac or Windows.

ContactSheetKit

The browser contact sheet maker is built for the common case: a folder of JPEGs and a client waiting. Drop the folder in, set columns and rows with the page redrawing as you go, turn on filenames or frame numbers, add a header and a watermark, and download a PDF at up to 300dpi. It runs entirely on your machine, so nothing is uploaded and it works on a computer that has never had Adobe installed. When you need an answer rather than a document, a review link lets the client tick the frames they want and leave notes.

Where it is the wrong choice: it does not read raw files, so you export JPEGs first, and it is not a catalogue. If your sheets are always made from images already edited in Lightroom Classic, use Lightroom.

How to choose

• Images already in a Lightroom Classic catalogue? Use the Print module.
• Culling in Photo Mechanic or Bridge already? Print from there.
• A folder of files, any computer, a client waiting? Use a browser maker.
• Just want to glance at a folder? Preview or Print Pictures will do.
• Need the client's picks back, not just a PDF? You want a review link, not a print layout. See how to send photo proofs to clients.