contactsheets.app

Guide · contactsheets.app

Contact sheets for film scans.

A darkroom contact print shows a roll on one sheet. If you scan instead, you can still have the sheet: frames in strips of six, sprocket holes, edge numbers, ready to file with the negatives.

  • Photos never leave your computer
  • PDF with real text, sized for print
  • HEIC, TIFF scans and RAW previews too

Why bother, when the scans are on screen?

Because a sheet is how you find a negative again. File the printed sheet in the same sleeve as the strips and you can see which roll a picture is on without turning on a computer. Many photographers also mark up sheets with a grease pencil before deciding what to print or rescan.

The film look

Choose Dark film under Look. Each row becomes a strip of film with sprocket holes along both edges and the frame number printed on the edge, "12" and "▸12A", in the style of real edge printing. Six columns gives strips of six frames like a cut 35 mm roll; four suits 6×6 medium format with a square frame shape. The sheet's title is printed along the top edge of the strips, so put the roll number and film stock there: "ROLL 14 · HP5 @ 800".

A black page uses plenty of ink. For an archive copy, the Light proof style prints the same grid on white.

Scans as TIFF

Scanner software often saves TIFF, sometimes at 16 bits per channel and well over 100 MB a frame. Most browsers can't open TIFF at all, so this page has its own TIFF reader: it reads the scan strip by strip and shrinks it as it goes, so even big 16-bit scans don't fill your computer's memory. Uncompressed, LZW, Deflate and PackBits TIFFs work, in colour or greyscale, 8 or 16 bits. TIFFs compressed with JPEG inside aren't supported yet; save those as JPEG instead.

Frame order and numbers

Scanning software usually names files in order (roll14_01.tif, roll14_02.tif …). The default order is by name, in natural number order, so frame 10 follows frame 9. The frame numbers on the sheet count from 1 for each sheet; if your roll starts at frame 0 or 00, put the real numbers in your own caption text instead.

Printing and filing

Print the sheet at 100% on the same paper size you chose (A4 or US Letter suit most negative files), and write the roll and date on the back. Punched A4 sheets sit in the same ring binder as standard negative sleeves. If you'd rather keep it digital, the PDF's captions are searchable text, so a folder of sheets becomes an index you can search by filename.

Negatives, not positives?

This page doesn't invert colour negatives or remove the orange mask. Convert your scans to positives first, in your scanning software or editor; then make the sheet.

One-time unlock

For the whole shoot

Sheets of up to 36 photos, every layout option and PDF, PNG and JPEG downloads are free and stay free. The unlock is for big sets and regular use.

  • Unlimited photos per sheet: a whole wedding, a school, a year of scans.
  • No credit line at the foot of the page.
  • Saved layouts in this browser, one click to reuse.
  • A section per folder: drop a folder of folders or a ZIP, and each sub-folder starts a new page with its own heading.
  • CSV of every frame: number, filename, folder, date taken, camera, lens and exposure.

CONTACTSHEETS · ONE TIME

£1.99 once

Coming soon

It isn't on sale yet, so there's nothing to pay. Everything free on this page works now.