Software to produce contact sheets?

freshscaped · 2019-09-24 20:10:28

Nothing installed on my hardware (see next para) produces satisfactory contact sheets and there are no mentions of them in any of the documentation I have read.

I have Darktable and Rapid Photo Downloader running on my now dated PC as well as on my much newer laptop and I've had the GIMP for a very long time. All great applications for their various purposes. Darktable produces contact sheets of sorts but each image produced is huge and so is easily reproduced from what is meant to be a small sample. RPD was never meant to do anything like that so I haven't tried it. It is possible using the GIMP, but a very long winded, almost tortuous process.

I also have Digikam installed but haven't used it so am not familiar enough to go beyond some very basics with it.

Meanwhile, I have a small number of people who would like me to take photographs for them. In exchange, I want to be able to use them and any excess ones for my own portfolio, possibly for sales and other uses too. People are happy with that arrangement but I need to get signed agreements so I can't get stabbed in the back by people reneging at some future date. Agreements protect them in a similar way, too. Neither I nor my beneficiaries after my death ( I am old), nor even anybody who buys my business before I die if it gets big enough to sell, could do the dirty on them if they can wave a signed agreement in the belligerent's direction.

What I need is something which will accept .jpg images from my file system and produce lightweight, small size, thumbnails of them which I can then send digitally or on paper as, say, A4 sheets, each with, say, a dozen or so thumbnails on, along with a copy of the agreement for them to sign and return before I forward the full size images they select.

Interesting fact: In the days of film these were produced by physically touching negatives onto photographic paper. Hence the name contact sheets, which has stuck with us through the digital age even though neither negative nor paper are used and there is no contact between them these days.

I see from previous discussions (and the fact that image processing apps have processed through AUR to Community release over the years) that there are many photographers using these forums. Ho do you make your contact sheets, if you still use them?

Thanks, in anticipation,

Mike

Trilby · 2019-09-24 20:42:28

I don't know of ready-made photo-specific tools for this, but it'd be trivially simple to do this with latex. Make the tex document once, then regenerate a pdf for each new set of images.

freshscaped · 2019-09-24 20:54:40

Aha! Lateral thinking. Thank you, Inspector. I should be considering document formatting rather than image formatting.

I'd be surprised if there is a tool specially designed for this job. I am surprised, though, that more of the image manipulation tools developers haven't thought to build it in. But then, after taking photos for years, I've only just thought of a reason to need it.

Arch Linux

#1 2019-09-24 20:10:28

Software to produce contact sheets?

#2 2019-09-24 20:42:28

Re: Software to produce contact sheets?

#3 2019-09-24 20:54:40

Re: Software to produce contact sheets?

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