As an amateur photographer, I’m always looking for the perfect application that will allow me to manage my photo collection. By perfect, I mean an application that allows easy (or detailed) adjustment tools, a way to organize my photos by keyword, and good print support. I like to print two photos per page if possible, since that reduces paper usage and allows me to stick the sheet in a portfolio or binder very easily.
Since taking possession of my MacBook Pro, I’ve had the opportunity to try the trial versions of Apple Aperture and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, but this article will focus on the printing functionality of Lightroom alone. I will detail Aperture’s functionality in another post.
Lightroom has a very flexible print module. It allows you to create templates for various print layouts. You an do the same with the Web module, defining your own web templates to upload to your web site. By default, Lightroom has a very limited set of print templates - mostly contact sheet and full sheet-specific. But with a little customization, you can define your own template for printing photos at home.
Click below to follow along with a short tutorial on setting up a simple Lightroom print template.
Update: I just checked the settings again on LR 1.4.1 and it does not accept 0.13 as right/left values. Try setting the values at left 0.25, right 0.25, top 0.25, bottom 0.56, and make sure to set the cell size height to 5 and the cell size width to 7. This will produce the correct template. Thanks Julia!
