What Lightroom does, and what you actually need
In Lightroom Classic, contact sheets live in the Print module: you pick a grid template such as "4x5 Contact Sheet", tick what to print under each photo, and print to a printer, to a JPEG, or to PDF through your system's print dialog. It works well if Lightroom is already where your photos live. If it isn't, importing a folder into a catalogue just to print one proof sheet is a lot of ceremony, and the subscription is a lot of money for a grid of thumbnails.
A contact sheet needs four things: every photo in the set, shrunk to a size you can still judge; a number or filename under each one so people can say which they mean; the page set up for the paper you print on; and a file that prints the same everywhere. A PDF does the last part. This page does the rest.
How to do it here
- Drop the photos on this page, or a whole folder, or a ZIP. JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, TIFF and HEIC work, and so do camera RAW files, through the preview picture the camera stores inside them.
- Choose the paper (A4, US Letter, A3 or Legal) and how many columns. Rows fill the page automatically, or set them yourself, or ask for a number of thumbnails per page.
- Pick the captions: frame number, filename, date taken, camera and lens, exposure, or your own text. Add a title for the top of each page.
- Look at the preview of the first page, then press Download PDF.
The photos are read by your browser on your own computer. Nothing is uploaded, which matters for client work and for anything with children in it.
Is the PDF good enough to print?
Each thumbnail is embedded as a JPEG at 300 pixels per inch of its printed size (you can choose 150 or 200 to make the file smaller), so it's sharp on paper without carrying the full 24 megapixels of every photo. The captions are real text, not part of a picture, so they stay crisp at any size and you can search the PDF for a filename. Margins, gaps and the frame shape are yours to set, and the preview shows exactly what the PDF will hold.
The free version and the unlock
Sheets of up to 36 photos are free, with every layout option, and carry a small "Made with contactsheets.app" line at the foot of the page. The one-time unlock removes the line and the limit, saves your layouts, gives one section per sub-folder when you drop a folder of folders, and exports a CSV of every filename with its date and camera settings.
Other ways without Lightroom
- Adobe Bridge is free to download and makes PDF contact sheets in its Output workspace. It's a desktop install with an Adobe account.
- Windows: select photos in File Explorer, choose Print, and the Print Pictures window offers a "Contact sheet" layout of 35 small photos per page, without captions.
- macOS Photos: File › Print offers a contact-sheet layout too.
- IrfanView, XnView MP and FastStone are free Windows viewers that can build contact sheets as images.
Those are all fine choices. This page is for when you want captions with real camera details, a proper PDF, any paper size, and nothing to install.