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How to make a contact sheet in Photoshop (Contact Sheet II), with file names under each photo

By Blink Brief · Updated  · How pages are made

Put the photos in one folder, choose File › Automate › Contact Sheet II, pick the folder as the source, set the page size, the resolution and the columns and rows, select Use Filename As Caption, and click OK. Photoshop builds the sheet as a new document, which you save as a PDF with File › Save As › Photoshop PDF. Adobe says Contact Sheet II is in Photoshop CS6 and later, and that photos in subfolders are left out.

Short answer

  • Open it: File › Automate › Contact Sheet II, or in Adobe Bridge, Tools › Photoshop › Contact Sheet II.
  • File names: select Use Filename As Caption, then the font and size.
  • Per page: columns × rows under Thumbnails; 5 × 6 is 30 photos a sheet.
  • PDF: File › Save As › Photoshop PDF; several sheets into one PDF with File › Automate › PDF Presentation.
  • No Photoshop, or an iPad: a browser contact sheet maker, from JPEGs.

Contact Sheet II, step by step

Adobe's steps, from its Photoshop help (last updated October 4, 2026) and its Learn tutorial. We followed Adobe's pages; we didn't run Photoshop for this guide.

  1. Put the photos in one folder. "Images in subfolders are not included."
  2. Open Contact Sheet II: in Photoshop, select File › Automate › Contact Sheet II. From Bridge, select a folder or specific images, then Tools › Photoshop › Contact Sheet II.
  3. Choose the source in the Use menu. With Folder, select Browse and pick the folder.
  4. Set the page in the Document area: units, width and height, resolution and color mode. Flatten All Layers puts everything on one layer; deselect it "to keep each image and caption on separate layers".
  5. Arrange the thumbnails in the Thumbnails area: Across First or Down First in the Place menu, then the number of columns and rows.
  6. Spacing and rotation: Use Auto-Spacing, or deselect it and enter the spacing. Rotate For Best Fit turns photos to use the space.
  7. Captions: select Use Filename As Caption, then a font and size.
  8. Select OK. "Photoshop creates a new document containing your arranged thumbnails."
  9. Save it as a PDF: File › Save As, choose Photoshop PDF in the format menu, select Save, pick a preset in the Adobe PDF Preset menu, and select Save PDF.

Two notes from Adobe on the Bridge route: "only images currently displayed are included unless you select specific images first", and Bridge "is not installed by default with Photoshop". You download it from the Apps tab of the Creative Cloud app.

File names: Use Filename As Caption, and long names

Adobe: "Select Use Filename As Caption to label each thumbnail with its source filename, then select a font and size from the menus." That is the only caption Contact Sheet II offers in Adobe's page: the file name, or none.

The file extension in the caption

The caption is the whole file name, ".jpg" included, as photographers in Adobe's forum find, and Adobe's page has no setting to drop it. In that forum, a Community Expert gave this workaround. It edits a script inside Photoshop, so it's not an Adobe setting: keep the backup.

  1. Quit Photoshop.
  2. In Photoshop's application folder, under Presets › Scripts, copy ContactSheetII.jsx somewhere safe as a backup.
  3. Open ContactSheetII.jsx in a plain text editor (in TextEdit, use plain text mode).
  4. Find the line self.noExtensions = false; and change false to true.
  5. Save the file and start Photoshop again.

Without editing anything, another Community Expert in the same thread points to Bridge: its Output workspace has an Include File Extension option you can untick. Making a photo contact sheet PDF with file names has the Bridge steps.

Long file names

Adobe's page doesn't say what happens to a name wider than its thumbnail. The settings it gives you that make room are the caption's font size and the number of columns: fewer columns means wider thumbnails. If you deselect Flatten All Layers, each caption stays a layer of its own, so you can still edit a name on the sheet afterwards.

Page size, columns and rows: how many per page

You set the page as a width and height in the Document area; Adobe's page names no paper sizes. US Letter is 8.5 × 11 inches, for clients in the US and Canada; A4 is 21 × 29.7 cm almost everywhere else. Set the units first, then width and height; for landscape, swap them.

You set the columns and rows "for each contact sheet", so the count per page is columns × rows:

Columns × rows Photos per sheet Sheets for a 300-photo shoot Use
3 × 41225Large thumbnails, room for long names
4 × 52015A proof sheet a client can read
5 × 63010A full shoot in few pages, short names

Arithmetic from the columns and rows you enter; how much of each name fits depends on the caption size.

Several sheets into one PDF. If you end up with more than one sheet, Photoshop's PDF Presentation combines them. Adobe lists "Source images saved in a Photoshop-compatible format" as what it needs, so save each sheet first, then:

  1. Select File › Automate › PDF Presentation.
  2. Select Browse to pick the saved sheets, or Add Open Files, and drag them into order.
  3. Under Output Options, select Multi-Page Document.
  4. Select Save, name the file and save it.

When it doesn't work: the menu item, RAW files, an update

We found no Adobe help page on fixing Contact Sheet II. These are reports from Adobe's own forum, with what was suggested there.

  • The menu item is missing. A user of Photoshop 2025 on a Mac couldn't find Contact Sheet II under File › Automate. A Community Expert suggested resetting Photoshop's preferences, and then uninstalling and reinstalling Photoshop from the Creative Cloud app. Adobe's reset: close Photoshop, hold Option + Command + Shift (Mac) or Alt + Ctrl + Shift (Windows) while you start it, and select Yes at "Delete the Adobe Photoshop Settings file?". Adobe recommends backing up your preferences first. Also check your version: Adobe says Contact Sheet II is "available in Photoshop CS6 and later versions."
  • It gives an error and doesn't start. A bug report about Photoshop 2024 on Windows was closed by an Adobe community manager with "The issue was resolved in 26.3." Update Photoshop from the Creative Cloud app before anything else.
  • The sheets come out blank. A user on Photoshop 27.2.0 on a Mac got blank sheets, and from Bridge "General Photoshop error occurred"; it worked again the following morning, with no cause found in the thread.
  • RAW files. Adobe's page doesn't say which file types Contact Sheet II reads. If a folder of RAW files fails or crawls, export JPEGs to a new folder and run it on that. JPEGs are also what the browser tools below need.

Photoshop on the iPad, and no Photoshop at all

iPad. Adobe's Contact Sheet II page is part of its Photoshop desktop help and starts the command from the File › Automate menu or from Bridge, a desktop app. None of Adobe's pages we read, the Photoshop on the iPad FAQ included, describes a contact sheet on the iPad. Export the photos as JPEGs and make the sheet in a browser: making a contact sheet on an iPad or phone has the steps.

No Photoshop. The free Contact Sheet tool runs in any browser, on a phone or a computer. Add JPEG, PNG or WebP photos, choose US Letter or A4 and 2 to 8 photos across, label each with its file name, its frame number or both, and click Download PDF. The file names in the PDF are real text your client can copy. No sign-up and no watermark; your photos are never uploaded, and the page loads its PDF library from a public code server (cdnjs). It doesn't open RAW files and doesn't save your sheet, so export JPEGs first and download the PDF before closing the tab.

Adobe Bridge, Lightroom Classic, XnView MP, a Mac and Windows each make one too: see making a photo contact sheet PDF with file names, and contact sheet makers compared for prices and watermarks.

Sending it to the client for picks

  1. Name the PDF for the client and the shoot: Rivera-family-proofs-2026-11-06.pdf.
  2. Ask for file names. Say how many photos their package includes, and ask them to reply with the file names under the ones they want, by a date.
  3. Find the originals. The captions are the names of the files in the folder, so if those kept your camera's names, they match your originals once you delete the extension: a Lightroom search for DSC_0412.jpg won't find DSC_0412.CR3. In Lightroom Classic, paste the names without the extension into the Library Filter: client proofing from Lightroom shows how.

That's as far as a PDF goes. It has no way to mark what your client picks, so the choices come back in an email, as names, numbers or descriptions you match to files by hand.

Our product · in development

Blink Proof: send your client one private link to the contact sheet instead of a PDF. They star the frames they want and comment on any of them, and you get back the picked file names in one line, to paste into Lightroom Classic's Library Filter (Text › Filename › Contains). Planned price $9/month.

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Questions

How do I make a contact sheet in Photoshop?

Put the photos in one folder, choose File › Automate › Contact Sheet II, choose Folder in the Use menu and browse to it, set the size, resolution and the columns and rows, select Use Filename As Caption, and click OK. Photoshop makes the sheet as a new document; save it with File › Save As › Photoshop PDF. Adobe says Contact Sheet II is in Photoshop CS6 and later.

Can Photoshop put file names under each photo?

Yes. Select Use Filename As Caption in the Contact Sheet II dialog, and choose the caption's font and size there. The caption includes the file extension; Adobe gives no setting to drop it, and the fix Adobe's forum offers is an edit to the Contact Sheet II script.

Is there Contact Sheet II on Photoshop for iPad?

Adobe documents Contact Sheet II in its Photoshop desktop help only, from File › Automate or from Adobe Bridge, and none of Adobe's iPad pages we read mentions a contact sheet. On an iPad, make the sheet in a browser tool that saves a PDF with file names.

Sources

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