Have you ever wanted to see all the pictures of a group printed on one sheet?  Like the old ‘contact sheets’ you used to get from the photo labs.  Guess what?  Picasa is your photo lab!  It can print contact sheets like this:

Two Ways to Print Contact Sheets

There is a specific ‘Print Contact Sheet’ command in Picasa.  You can print contact sheets from a folder, or an album.  Just select a folder and you’ll see a ‘Folder’ menu in the menu bar.  On that menu you’ll see “Print Contact Sheet.”  If you select an Album, you see ‘Album’ in the menu bar.  On that menu you’ll also see “Print Contact Sheet.”   You can also add ‘Contact Sheet’ to the standard print options in Tools | Options | Printing | Available print sizes.

The other way to make a contact sheet is to use the Collage feature in Picasa.  When you click on the drop down list for settings, you will see an option for Contact Sheet.

The Differences Between Print Contact Sheet and Collage Contact Sheet

Print Contact Sheet

1. Goes straight to the printer
2. No control over size of images, it prints 7 across and 6 down, taking as many pages as necessary
3. No control over orientation, some vertical pictures will print sideways to fit in row
4. Allows a caption below each picture by selecting from the Border and Text options menu.  Only allows for a few words – longer captions will be cut off.

Collage in Contact Sheet Style

1. Creates a new .jpg image with the selected pictures, then you print that one image
2. Limited to one page, images will be sized to fit the page.  Lots of images – each one is very small; fewer images – they will be bigger.
3. Orientation of images will be the same as in your library
4. No captions
5. Since the result is a .jpg – you can then use the Text Tool to add text if you want

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tou

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

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