Pretty as a Picture Package

If you remember having your class pictures taken as a child or have ever gone to a retailer or professional photographer’s studio, then you have probably seen the contact sheets that come from these photo sessions. You purchase one of those special deals and wind up with, say, an 8-x-10-inch print, two 5 x 7s, four 4 x 5s, and eight wallet-sized shots. The number of pictures you get at each of these dimensions isn’t pulled out of a hat. That’s the number of images at a given size that can be fit on a single 8-x-10-inch sheet of photographic paper.

Photofinishers have automated printers that can expose those duplicates onto a standardsized section of a roll of photographic paper, which is then processed and cut apart by mechanized equipment. Photoshop can perform much the same magic with your own photos, creating image documents that you can then print as your own picture packages. This is much easier and faster than you cropping and pasting multiple copies of images onto a single document. Just follow these steps to create your own picture package.
1. Open the picture you want to use for your picture package in Photoshop.
If you want to create multiple picture packages of different images using the same parameters, copy the images to a single folder. You have your choice of using files in a folder, an opened file, a specific file, or selected files in the File Browser.
2. Choose File-->Automate-->Picture Package.
The Picture Package dialog box. Again, remember that you can also choose this command from within the File Browser.
3. In the Source Images area, select Frontmost Document to create the picture package from the image that is currently selected in Photoshop, or choose File and select a single file from your hard drive. Click Browse (Choose on the Mac) to navigate to files or folders.
If you select Folder to create picture packages from all the files in a folder, all the picture packages must use the same parameters that you enter in the Picture Package dialog box. You can also use images that you have preselected from the File Browser.
4. If you’d like to include more than one picture in a picture package, click a sample thumbnail in the Layout area of the dialog box.
A Select an Image File dialog box appears.
5. Find the image you want to substitute and click it.
The image appears in the thumbnail you chose in Step 4.
6. Repeat to insert other images in the picture package.
7. Choose a setting for Page Size from the list.
In most cases, you’ll want to use 8 x 10 inches. You can also select 10 x 16 inches or 11 x 17 inches if you have a printer that can handle larger sheets of paper.
8. Choose a layout.
You can fill an entire sheet with only one size photo, if you like, such as two 5-x-7-inch pictures or eight 2.5-x-3.5-inch pictures. Or you can select one of the other combinations, such as two 4 x 5s, two 2.5 x 3.5s, or four 2-x-2.5-inch photos.
9. Adjust the resolution settings.
The default value is 72 pixels/inch. You’ll probably want a higher resolution, such as 300 pixels/inch, if you plan to print the picture package. Check your printer documentation to see the recommended resolution. Also check out Book II, Chapter 1 and Book X, Chapter 2 for more on recommended resolution settings.
10. Choose a color mode from the Mode pop-up menu.
RGB is the best choice in most cases. However, if your images happen to be black and white, you can create smaller, more compact picture package files by selecting the Grayscale option. Check your printer documentation.
11. Select the Flatten All Layers option to create a picture package with a single layer in which Photoshop merges all images and their labels (if you choose to apply them).
12. If you want to apply some text, you can do it in the Label area of the dialog box.
Most picture packages don’t require any sort of text descriptions, but the option is available if you want it. You can choose content such as Filename, Copyright, Credit, and so on.
13. Select Custom Text from the Content pop-up menu to type your own text.
14. Adjust the font settings, position the text, and rotate the text to your heart’s content. Use the Opacity dropdown list to adjust the type’s opacity.
You can also use text already associated with the file, such as filename, credit, or copyright information, but you can’t add that information in this dialog box. You have to add it directly to the image file itself using FileÍFile Info or via the File Browser.
15. Click OK to create the picture package, ready for printing.