Having a variety of images and graphics to pick and choose from is great when you’re designing web pages or putting together presentations and documents using software from openoffice.org, but trying to wade through a large disorganized mess isn’t so fun. Not only is it difficult to keep things straight, the time it takes to open each file individually or wait for the thumbnail to pop up on your find window can be more than you’re willing to spend.
While there are programs like Bridge that will give you thumbnail previews, having a contact sheet you can send to clients or other members of your design project can be a valuable resource.
Try to organize your files as best as you can. Put all the images for one project or page in the same folder. You can use just about any image file type, like PDFs or jpgs.
In Photoshop, select Automate from the File pull down menu, then select Contact Sheet II. Choose what folder you want to pull your images from, and be sure to specify if you want to Include All Subfolders.
Choose your document size, then figure out how many thumbnails you want per sheet. If you know what your total file count is, you can arrange the rows and columns for maximum size. If you have 20 files, for example, you could set it for five rows of four each. There will be a sample on the right.
Click Use Filename As Caption to make locating files afterwards easier. Set your point size to 10. SelectOK, then wait for your file to be made.
Once your contact sheet is on the screen, look it over to make sure it contains all the images you need it to. Don’t forget to save.
Now you have a simple file that you can use to easily browse through and find what image is best suited for your web page.