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Noble Desktop Publishing Team/3 min read

Contact Sheets

Bridge vs Lightroom

Bridge

File browser — no catalog, edits files in place.

Lightroom Classic

Catalog-based, designed for photo editing workflows.

When to Use Bridge

Mixed media, designers, projects with lots of file types.

Integration

Bridge plays nicely with InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop.

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Learn how to use Adobe Bridge to automatically create PDF contact sheets from your files, including image selection, workspace navigation, and installation of the Output module in this comprehensive tutorial.

Topics Covered in This Adobe Bridge Tutorial:

Using the Output Workspace, Automatic Contact Sheet Creation

Exercise Preview

koala contact

Exercise Overview

Contact sheets put thumbnails of your files together on a page, or pages, and can be a great way to show work to clients. Bridge can create these contact sheets (saved as a PDF) for you. We’ll show you how that works with the Output workspace.

Installing the Output Module

The Output module was included in earlier versions of Bridge but no longer comes pre-installed with Bridge CC. Luckily Adobe still offers it as a separate download.

  1. Quit Bridge if it’s currently running.

  2. Go to tinyurl.com/bridge-omcc

  3. Download and install it using the instructions on that webpage.

  4. Once installation is complete, launch Bridge. If it asks about enabling the extension, click Yes.

Navigating to the Correct Folder & Selecting the Images

  1. As we have in previous exercises, navigate into the Class Files folder, then into the Bridge Files folder, then into the Collection of Files folder.

  2. Let’s switch to the Output workspace:

    • Go to Window > Workspace > Output.
    • Then go to Window > Workspace > Reset Workspace.

  3. Click once on the first koala picture.

  4. Shift–click the last koala picture so you have all nine koala pictures selected.

Automatically Generating Contact Sheets

  1. At the top of the Output panel on the right, make sure PDF is selected.

  2. From the Page Preset menu choose U.S. Paper. (This also sets the Size menu to Letter for us.)

  3. In the Layout section, set both Columns and Rows to 3.

  4. Scroll down in the Output panel to the Playback section.

  5. Make sure the three options under Playback are not checked. These are nice if you are making a slideshow to send to someone, but we’re just making a contact sheet so we don’t want it to go full screen and start playing like a slideshow does.

  6. At the top of the Output panel, click Refresh Preview.

  7. If everything looks in order, at the bottom of the Output panel check on View PDF After Save, then click Save.

  8. Bridge will prompt you for a location to save the PDF of the contact sheet. Save it back into the Bridge Files folder as Koala Contact.pdf.

  9. That’s all there is to it! Bridge automatically generates a PDF contact sheet from the images you’ve selected. You can do whatever you like with this PDF file: print it, email it, save it for later, etc.

Two Other Ways to Make Contact Sheets

While Bridge’s PDF contact sheets are adequate for most purposes, you can also make contact sheets as Photoshop and InDesign files.

For Photoshop contact sheets, in Photoshop, go to File > Automate > Contact Sheet II.

InDesign included a contact sheet script in CS3 but no longer provides one. However, the programmer who originally wrote that script has released a commercial version for $30. As of this writing, the latest version was for CS6, and we’re not sure if that works in CC or not. You can learn more at his website creativescripting.net (On the right click, Purchase Services & Scripts.) The InDesign contact sheets were especially nice because they are fast to generate, with editable text and styles controlling the appearance.