[RESOLVED] Program for printing out photos?

[gypsy63]

I have several photo editing programs on my computer that will also allow me to print out my photos. But what I am looking for is a program that I can specify different photos on one sheet. Example, I want to print out wallet size photos but don't want to print out just one image for all the wallet sizes--would like to use more than one photo and have them all printed out on just that one wallet sheet. Don't know if there is such a program to do this or not. Would prefer a free program if available, can not afford anything else right now. This is the photo editing programs I have on my computer, even though some of them I have not used yet:
PhotoScape
Infranview
Paint
PaintNet
PhotoEditor
Picasa 3
TriScape-FxPhoto
Windows Gallery (but don't like it)

If I even knew the correct search term to use to do a search for this program, I would be able to find something myself--but don't know how to word the search without getting nothing but results for photo editing programs. Is there such a thing as just a program for printing out photos?

Thanks,

[photolady]

Sheila, I think the only way you can do this is create your own package deal. Open a new document, size it to your paper size, then open each photo you want to add. Copy and paste each photo. Even PhotoShop and PhotoShop Elements won't do individual separate photos in their packages. So to do what you want you have to do what I did and instructed to do above.

[Train]

Darn, I knew I forgot something.

Say I want to print out 9 different pictures at wallet size.
I open the picture in Windows Picture and Fax viewer. XP that is.

What OS are you dealing with?

So I can knock out a tutorial.

[General Winters]

You can use Windows Photo Gallery (vista) to say select 9 photos.

(Windows 7/XP users can download Windows Live Photo Gallery though having never used it am not sure of its capabilities.)



Then print and select wallet from the list on the right.



Then print that out to an a4/letter sheet of photo paper and cut them out.

Irfanview also has a create contact sheet option.



Where you can specify the number of rows and columns and whether to include file info such as name etc under each photo.



Once that is created then you can save the sheet or print it.

[photolady]

contact sheets only make thumbnail size prints. Small, in other words. Faststone will do this also but again, they are small photos not wallet sized, 2x3 or 2.5x3.5.

Paintnet, might have those capabilities. I do not know I've never used that program though I have it downloaded, I've never had a need to use it being I have two Adobe products.

[General Winters]

contact sheets only make thumbnail size prints. Small, in other words. Faststone will do this also but again, they are small photos not wallet sized, 2x3 or 2.5x3.5.

Cough.



Landscape A4 contact sheet created by Irfanview, 9 sub images, each of which measure (approx) 3.4in by 2.54in...

[Train]

As the General brought out while I was making the tutorials, windows does just fine for me.

XP using Picture and Fax Viewer

Print Wallet with Vista

[Welshjim]

Using Windows Picture and Fax Viewer
http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/dig...ntwizardxp.htm

And you can do it in MS Word
http://www.pcdon.com/dePrintingMulti...inglePage.html

But manyany other photo editing programs will permit the printing of several separate images on one sheet of paper. The key is to create a blank canvas of the desired dimensions on the editor screen, then paste the individual image you want to print onto the blank. You create a blank canvas for each image. That means you must know the size of the blank you need to accomodate the image. And the blanks can be right next to each other.

[gypsy63]

I'm sorry that I forgot to post that I use Vista 32 bit. I think I like the idea of printing out 9 photos the best instead of very small photos. The only reason I don't like Windows Gallery is because it does not allow you to set-up your printer when you hit the print button. You have to configure your printer first to how you want your printer to print the pictures--such as on my Cannon it has several good options that you can enable to get the very best quality photos-such as the "Vivid Photo" option. All of these options have to be setup and then the settings have to be made the default before you use Windows Gallery or you won't get the very best quality photo.

Photolady: For some reason when I try to print with Paint Net, Windows Gallery pops up--I don't know why, I don't remember it doing this in the past--but it has been a long time since I have tried to use Paint Net to print with, so I might be wrong.

General Winters: You stated,

Landscape A4 contact sheet created by Irfanview, 9 sub images, each of which measure (approx) 3.4in by 2.54in.

but I have never used Irfanview so I am not sure how to use it for printing. I know that I have the program, and it is highly regarded, but I have always had programs that did whatever I needed them to do in the past so I have just not had the need to use it yet. I don't understand what you meant by "sub images" or by "a4/letter sheet of photo paper". I am trying to print out wallet size photos of my grandchildren and great-grand children to send to their grandfather (my ex of 40 years) so I won't be needing file names under them-I will write each one of their names on the back. Since I have so many grands and great grands, I can not afford all the ink and paper to send him bigger sizes of each one of them--I am just sending him one 8X10 family photo of all of his family & the wallet sizes of the kids. The 9 photos that you show in your last post looks like just the right size to print out for him. I hate to put you through a lot of trouble, but could you give me an idea how to get the photos I want to print to show up in a screen/window in Irfanview and what kind of configurations should I specify for each of the photos to be in size to be printed out? And does the photos need to be in a certain format, such as either BMP or JPEG? Some photo programs won't print but in a certain format. Since I am so unfamiliar with this program I am afraid I will mess up and wind up wasting my ink and photo paper if I don't print them out right.
PS I am now previewing my post and see where 2 more people have posted since I started this post, so I will have to study their posts and links before answering to them.
Thanks in advance for your help,

[photolady]

And I stand corrected. I have never used Windows programs. Listen to the General and Train, they seem to know windows programs better then I, Sheila.

[Train]

Yes, I forgot to show you PL.
Jaw jacked to much.

[General Winters]

Ok, Gypsy63

Launch Irfanview, file - thumbnails

On the left hand side drill down to the folder containing the images you want, and they will show on the right hand side.



Select the pictures you want, you can hold down the ctrl key and left click each picture you want, as you can see they shade as they are selected.

Right click on a shaded (selected pic) and select "Create contact sheet" from the menu pop up.

Select the size of the sheet you want to save the image to, in my case (UK) i press A4, or i can enter the size manually.

Note i also changed the dpi (dots per inch) to 300, for better quality.

Also as you can see the sheet is 21 x 29.7cm which shows the sheet is in portrait orientation, so since i want it to be landscape i reverse the figures, width 29.7 and height 21 (I assume you will be printing on letter sized paper, so the figures will be different for you (11x8.5in i think), just press the Letter button and reverse the width and height)

Note I want the paper to be landscape since the photos are all landscape, if your photos are all or mostly portrait then set up the sheet as portrait and the images will fit better.

If you have some very small images you can also try ticking the Stretch small images box.

You can try various options till you get the look you like.



Make sure columns and rows are 3 x 3 and untick the box beside Write File Infos as that would write the file name under each image.

Then click the create button and wait a moment for the images to be loaded and the sheet to be created.

File - save as will save the contact sheet for future use.

Then using irfanview or any other printing program, print the image file as a landscape print.

You can then cut out the individual photos, thus using only one sheet of paper for the nine smaller photos.

Edit//

Here are two examples of why you should fit portrait photos to portrait orientated paper and landscape to landscape.

See how the portrait photos fit and use a lot more of the paper compared to when fitted to paper in landscape ?

,

[photolady]

Guess you'll have to show me on the next trip, Train.

And GW, I never used irfanview this way. Glad to see you could help Sheila.

[General Winters]

The free image editing and viewing programs you can get nowadays are really wonderful.

While i have Photoshop CS3 I usually find myself using irfanview, gimp, xnview, faststone and picasa3 as they have so much built into them, that are useful and fast to use.

[gypsy63]

Thank you General Winters for those wonderful and simple instructions. I have printed out all your instructions on this page so I should not have any problems following your instructions when I start to use I Irfanview. Before I came back here I went to my program's list and was going to open Irfanview & discovered I no longer have it on my computer! I know I use to have it, but it might have been on my previous computer that crashed and burned. So I will download it to my new computer. After I finish downloading Irfanview, I have something I have to go and do so it will be a few hours before I can get back here and tell all of you how everything turned out. So it maybe tomorrow before you know my results.

And yes General Winters, I will be printing on letter sized paper-11x8.5in. So is that what you meant the first time you posted about A4--that is what you would press but not me since my paper size is different than yours? I don't have to worry about stretching small images because all my pictures are very large--but good to know if I ever need to print too small a picture.

Welshjim: I checked out the link about using MS Word to print photos and found it very interesting. I have in the past used Word to print out a photo, but not like the instructions were on this site (the site had a better way of doing it!) and not multiple photos. The reason I had used Word was because it was the only way I could configure my printer to print out the photo the way I wanted it to. But I have read several different sources that said printing photos with Word were not very good quality photos. The ones I printed in Word did not have to be good quality so I wasn't worried about it at the time. This link also had a lot of other good information listed on it that I was able to use, so thanks for the link and the trouble you went to to post it for me.

But in any case, I want to thank everyone for all your suggestions and helpful information.