MAGAZINE
18
June/July 2007
Use InDesign to Make a Custom Contact Sheet This excerpt is reprinted with the permission of InDesign Magazine, copyright 2007.
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Quick and Easy Photo Contact Sheets
B y K e i t h G i l b e rt
Yes, this is still InDesign Magazine. There’s no need to use Photoshop to create automated contact sheets, picture packages, or photo albums. With the help of Bridge, InDesign is a much better choice.
When you want to create photo contact sheets or picture packages, your probable instinct is to head for Photoshop. But while it does have a contact sheet command, Photoshop is hardly the best app for the job: It’s extremely slow when manipulating a lot of pictures; offers little control over captioning and none over margins; and the result is a series of large, individual Photoshop files. You’re much better off with a combination of InDesign and Bridge’s Create InDesign Contact Sheet command.
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InDepth: Contact Sheets A Beautiful Day
Headed southwest towards Sand Island. A consistent 14 knot breeze from the northwest. We couldn’t ask for a nicer day. Lots of “power napping” today…with brief interludes of “power eating!”
What Is It Good For?
This dynamic duo isn’t limited to photo contact sheets. You could, for example, quickly create a photo album of pictures from a recent event, then print it or create a PDF to send to others. Or import images for a catalog project, then add descriptions and prices to the autogenerated file. Or bypass the restrictions of online services like Apple’s iPhoto books and design your own coffee-table book, with Bridge saving you the grunt work of importing scads of images and InDesign giving you almost limitless aesthetic options (Figure 1).
Where Is It and What Is It?
Adobe Bridge is installed with the standalone versions of InDesign CS2 and CS3, but the Create InDesign Contact Sheet script only comes with Creative Suite 2 Standard and Premium, and Creative Suite 3 Design Standard or Premium. Once you install Bridge, you’ll find its Create InDesign Contact Sheet command in Tools> InDesign. The Create InDesign Contact Sheet command is a script—a series of programming instructions that tell an application to perform a series of tasks. That means that anyone with JavaScript programming skills and a knowledge of InDesign could adapt the script to your particular needs and your workflow. Adobe encourages this and offers helpful resources for learning how to script the Creative Suite applications at www.adobe.com/products/indesign/scripting.
Sailing Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
On the other hand, since this is a script, it’s not as polished as a typical command built into Bridge or InDesign. There isn’t much error checking, so if you do something really strange, you may receive an error message. When you receive an error message, usually all you can do is click the OK button, and in some rare cases you may even need to force-quit Bridge or InDesign. That’s why I recommend that you save documents before you run the script.
June | July 2007
Anchored in Little Sand Bay. After a sumptuous dinner, we went ashore and explored the island. Awesome sandstone sea caves on the northwest shore. An amazing sand beach on the south end. Explored a great five mile hiking trail that wound northwest through the interior.
Blue Heron Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
1996 Sailing Adventure
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What Does It Do?
Once you select a group of images in Bridge and invoke the Create InDesign Contact Sheet command, you go through a series of dialog boxes to specify the eventual page size, margins, number of columns and rows, space between columns and rows, and other information. (I’ll explain each of these in a bit.) You can also choose an InDesign file with custom formatting instructions and use it as a template. Bridge then builds an InDesign file to your specifications. InDesign imports the images you selected in Bridge as appropriately scaled linked graphics. From there, you can choose to modify master pages, paragraph styles, and object styles to further refine the look of your project. Finally, you can print the finished project or save it as a PDF.
Blue Heron Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Rasberry Island Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Blue Heron Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Blue Heron Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Blue Heron Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
The crew at the helm Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Blue Heron Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Outer Island Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Great Pumpkin Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
At the helm Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
J at the helm Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Blue Heron Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
T at the helm Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Rasberry Island lighthouse Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Rasberry Island rocks Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Rasberry Island rocks Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Rasberry Island rocks Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
The crew at the helm Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Rasberry Island Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Blue Heron Apostle Islands, Lake Superior
Figure 1 (top and right). A script and InDesign lets you generate endless variations on these results in a flash.
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Snug harbor
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InDepth: Contact Sheets
How to Begin
The first step in creating a contact sheet is to start up Adobe Bridge. One way to access Bridge is to go to File> Browse in InDesign. In Bridge, arrange the images you want to include in the project in the order you want them to appear on the contact sheet, then select them. If all the images are in a single folder, simply Shift-click to select a series, or Command-click (Mac) or Ctrl-click (Windows) to select discreet images. If the images are in multiple subfolders, you’ll benefit from a couple of tricks: In CS2, you can select multiple folders, and the script will process all the images in the selected folders. By default, the script won’t process the images in any subfolders within those selected folders. To process the images in subfolders, you must select the top-level folder in the Bridge, run the script, click the Files button in the Contact Sheet dialog box, then select the Include Subfolders option (Figure 2). Bridge CS3 makes this much easier—just click the small No folder button in the upper-left corner of Bridge’s Filter panel (Figure 3). This flattens your view of any subfolders within the folder you’re in, showing you the contents of each folder mixed together. You can then select the images you want. Any kind of static graphic format you can place in InDesign works with the script; this includes JPEG, TIF, GIF, AI, PSD, PDF, EPS, BMP, and PNG images, but not
Figure 2. The default CS2 script doesn’t process images in subfolders within selected folders unless you select the top-level folder in the Bridge, run the script, click the Files button in the Contact Sheet dialog box, and select the Include Subfolders option.
media files such as QuickTime movies. Graphics can be a mix of portrait and landscape, at any size. The script will automatically size them on the page.
Using the Script Figure 3. To include subfolders in the CS3 version of the script, click the small No folder button in the upper-left corner of Bridge’s Filter panel.
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Figure 4. Top left, the Contact Sheet dialog in CS2; on the right, the dialog in CS3.
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Once you run the script by going to Tools> InDesign> Create InDesign Contact Sheet, you’ll see the Contact Sheet dialog (Figure 4). How you fill in these options determines the appearance of the resulting InDesign file generated by the script.
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InDepth: Contact Sheets
TIP: The key to using the script
Here’s a breakdown of your options: Page setup. Clicking the Page Setup button allows you to specify the contact sheet’s units (inches and millimeters only), page size, and margin information (Figure 5). You can choose any values that are valid in InDesign. For U.S. letter-size paper, the following values result in frames that match the 4:3 aspect ration of most digital cameras: .5 inch margins, .5 inch vertical gap, and 3 columns x 4 rows with a .125 inch horizontal gap, or 4 columns x 5 rows with a .145 inch horizontal gap. [CS2 only] Files. Clicking this button leads you to a dialog box with two useful features. The first is the Include Subfolders option described earlier. The second is the File Type Filter. You’ll see the dialog box in Figure 6 if you have images in formats other than JPEG, TIF, GIF, AI, PSD, or PDF when you run the script. As I mentioned earlier, the Create InDesign Contact Sheet script will work with just about any format that InDesign can place. If you find that the script is skipping over certain file formats such as EPS or PNG, click on the Files button, and add EPS (or BMP, or PNG, or whatever) to the File Type Filter field (Figure 7). Place. This controls whether you want the images placed in order across the page in rows first, or down the page in columns first.
successfully is to first select a small number of images in Bridge, and then determine the proper settings and options through trial and error. Once you’ve found the best settings for your project, let ’er rip on a large selection of many images while you sit back and enjoy the automation.
Figure 5. The page setup dialog box.
Figure 6. In CS2, this box pops up when you run the script on images in formats other than JPEG, TIF, GIF, AI, PSD, or PDF.
Columns and Rows. The number of columns and rows of images you want to appear on each page. The script will size the images accordingly to fit on the page. Horizontal Gap. The horizontal space that you want between each column of images. This can be zero.
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Figure 7. The CS2 Files dialog box, with EPS added to the File Type Filter list.
Vertical Gap. The height of the box that will be created to contain each caption. This must be greater than zero if a caption is specified.
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InDepth: Contact Sheets
Auto-Spacing. This sets the horizontal gap to .125 inches or the last value used, and automatically calculates the vertical gap to accommodate the type of caption you have chosen.
Figure 8. A portion of a contact sheet with some rotated images, and the error message you may see if your pasteboard size is too small.
Rotate image for best fit. Attempts to rotate images to the same orientation as the frames created on the page (Figure 8). If you use this option with large images, you may need to increase the size of your pasteboard to avoid an error message. To increase InDesign’s pasteboard size, close all INDD files, then choose Preferences> Guides & Pasteboard. Change the Minimum Vertical Offset to six inches or larger. You may need to eperiment to find the correct number for your project. [CS3 only] Use Gray Image Frames. Fills the border and caption frames with a tint of gray. Captions. CS2 has only three simple caption options, listed in the Caption section of the main dialog box. CS3 has many more capabilities for captioning, accessed by clicking on the Define button in the Caption section.
Figure 9. CS3 caption metadata options.
[CS2 only] Place over images. Places the caption frame on top of the image frame, aligning the bottoms of the frames, so the caption appears above the bottom portion of the image.
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File Name. Inserts the full file name, including the extension, in the caption. [CS3 only] Creation Date. Inserts the date the file was created in the caption. Modification date. Inserts the date the file was last modified in the caption. File size. Inserts the file size in the caption. In CS3, the default is to display the file size in kilobytes (K), but you can change to (for bytes) or (for megabytes). [CS3 only] Metadata. Inserts any XMP metadata that you specify and is present in the image into the caption (Figure 9). Metadata may include such information as exposure, location, copyright information and keywords. If the requested metadata doesn’t exist, the text [Metadata Not Available] is inserted in the caption. This is easy to remove after the contact sheet is created with a search and replace. Note that in CS3 you can include any static text in the caption. CS3 also displays a preview of what the caption will look like at the bottom of the Caption dialog box. Use InDesign Template. When you enable this option and choose an existing InDesign file (it doesn’t have
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InDepth: Contact Sheets
to be an official “template” file), the script ignores all settings in Page Setup and instead uses the template’s attributes for page size, orientation, facing pages, and margins. If you create object and paragraph styles inside your InDesign file with the proper names, the script will make use of them when building the contact sheet (see “Working with Templates,” next page). Save As PDF. Check this option to automatically generate a PDF file of the completed InDesign file. You can choose which PDF preset to use, as well as a file name and location.
Modifying the Results
After you click OK to run the script, InDesign appears and builds the contact sheet. When it’s done, you can easily make wholesale modifications to quickly affect the look of the document (Figure 10). For example, you can add a background color, texture, or other image on the master page. (Put it on a layer behind all the other layers.) You can format the paragraph style named “labels” to make the captions appear to your liking, modify the object style named “captions” to change the appearance of the caption frames, and change the object style named “images” to change the appearance of the image frames. In CS3 only, you can modify the object style named “imageFrames” to change the appearance of
the extra image border frames that the CS3 version of the script creates. To change the way the images fill their frames, select all the frames on the labels layer (CS2) or the objects layer (CS3), and choose Object> Fitting> Fit Frame to Content, Center Content, or Fill Frame Proportionally. Repeat this on each page. Or, install the InDesign scripts that I’ve written to help make this much easier. (For details and the link, see the sidebar “New and Improved Scripts,” page 27.) You can select all the objects on a layer by Option/Alt-clicking on the layer name.
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Other Contact Sheet Creators
Working with Templates
If you use the script often, I recommend an InDesign template to help you quickly achieve more attractive results. To get you started, you can download the template I created from http://downloads.indesignmag. com/supportfiles/Contact_Sheet_Templates.zip. When you modify my template, pay special attention to the following:
There are other ways to create contact sheets in InDesign. If the Adobe-provided script doesn’t fit your needs, you may want to try one of these solutions: Andromeda Software’s PhotoTiler Pro 2.0, a $79 plug-in for InDesign www.andromeda.com/main/phototiler.php
❱❱Page size, orientation, margins, and bleeds
Chris Paveglio’s ID Image Catalog,
❱❱Background color, texture, or other image on the master page
a $20 AppleScript chris.paveglio.com/#idimagecatalog
❱❱The paragraph style named “labels,” which affects the appearance of the caption text
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Figure 10. Frames and styles that are created by the script.The imageFrames frame is created by CS3 only.
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InDepth: Contact Sheets
❱❱The object style named “captions,” which affects the appearance of the caption frames ❱❱The object style named “images,” which changes the appearance of the image frames
horizontal gap value to the right of each column of images, including the right-most column. In a 4-column layout, the script adds three-fourths of the horizontal gap value to the right of each column of images, including the right-most column. See the pattern here?
The end result of these odd glitches is that the right-most column of images never lines up with the right margin, because the script always adds a fraction of the horizontal gap value to the right of the last column. If you’re creating a non-facing pages layout, you can make your right margin smaller to
❱❱[CS3 only] The object style “imageFrames,” which controls the appearance of the extra image border frames created by the CS3 version of the script.
New and Improved Scripts
Anomalies
Unfortunately, the Adobe-supplied script has some quirks and shortcomings that range from irritating to deal-breaking, depending on your project. Dialog boxes created by scripts don’t work as smoothly as regular InDesign dialog boxes. For example, pressing the Tab key doesn’t always move the cursor from field to field correctly. You can’t do math in field values, nor can you override the measurement system by typing different units after the values. All measurements are in inches unless you change the units by clicking on the Page Setup button. You can’t press Enter for OK or Esc for Cancel as in normal InDesign dialog boxes. In CS2, the script does some strange calculations for the horizontal gap value (the space between columns). In a 2-column layout, the script adds half of the horizontal gap value to the right of each column of images, including the right-most column. In a 3-column layout, the script adds two-third of the
The CS3 version of Bridge’s Create InDesign Contact Sheet script inherits many of the problems of the CS2 version and adds even more head-scratching inconsistencies. To make the script useful, I rolled up my sleeves and dug into the JavaScript code. (The Adobe license agreement permits modification and distribution.) My modified version of the script inserts the specified spacing value properly between rows and columns, plus numerous other improvements documented in the readme file included with the script. Installation instructions are also in the readme file. You can download from http://downloads.indesignmag.com/supportfiles/Contact_Sheet_Scripts.zip. I’ve also created a script for CS2 and CS3 called “Cleanup Contact Sheet” that removes all empty graphic and text frames from all pages; centers each
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graphic in its frame; fits each frame to the graphic within; and positions the top of each caption even with the bottom of each graphic frame. The Cleanup Contact Sheet script is useful when you have a wide mix of images with different aspect ratios. It will position each caption directly underneath each graphic, and both portrait and landscape orientation graphics will be positioned attractively. If you prefer a more a la carte approach to cleaning up your contact sheet file, try my individual scripts in either CS2 or CS3: “Center Graphics in Frames” centers every graphic in every frame on each page. “Delete Empty Frames” deletes all empty text and graphic frames on each page. “Fill Frames with Graphics” proportionally fills each graphic frame on each page with its contents. “Fit Frames to Graphics” fits each graphics frame on each page to its contents.
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InDepth: Contact Sheets
compensate for this oddity. It also means that it’s difficult to specify a precise amount of space between columns, since InDesign always uses a fraction of the amount specified. In CS3, the script calculates horizontal and vertical spacing in an even more bizarre fashion, making it extremely difficult to work with. To save you much teeth-gnashing, I’ve modified the CS3 version of the script. See the sidebar “New and Improved Scripts” on the previous page for more information, including a link to my modifcations.
Workflow Automation
Adobe calls the scripts that appear in the Tools menu of Bridge “Workflow automation” scripts. Despite its shortcomings, once you get the hang of how the Create InDesign Contact Sheet script works, and particularly if you use the scripts and templates included with this article, you’ll find that this powerful Bridge feature does indeed streamline your work.
Keith Gilbert is an Adobe Certified Instructor and an Adobe Print Specialist and has taught classes and seminars throughout the US, as well as Bridgetown, Barbados, and Nairobi, Kenya. Keith is one of a select group of individuals nationwide to be certified for on-site training in InDesign, InCopy, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat. He has been consulting and training for 22 years and still loves his job. For more information, visit www.gilbertconsulting.com or read his blog at gilbertconsulting.blogspot.com.
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