Editor's note: The 2026 class of my Lightroom Classic Secrets course is open for enrollment now. Learn the tips, techniques and secrets used by the Lightroom masters. Click here for the details. Thanks for reading, Andrew.
My new book Lightroom Classic Q&A II has a section for readers’ questions about the Print module. To give you a taste of the book’s contents I’m publishing some of those Print module questions right here. I hope you enjoy the questions and don’t forget to check out the book – you can buy it for just $8 until the end of March.
Q: I have multiple portrait orientation 4”x6” photos that I want to print as JPEGs with bands on the sides so that the resulting JPEG is 5”x6” (this allows posting to Instagram without cropping the top or bottom of the photo).
I’ve started using the Print Module. I need the photos all in separate files. Is it possible to mass print several photos this way, or do I have to print each photo separately?
A: You can do it by using a Single Image/Contact Sheet Layout Style and the (1) 4×6 template. With this setup Lightroom creates a new page for each photo and exports each one as a separate JPEG file. See the step by step instructions below for the details.
1: Add the photos you want to export to a Collection. Go to the Print module and select the (1) 4×6 template in the Template Browser panel. This template gives you a 4”x6” photo cell on a single page. Next set Use in the Toolbar to All Filmstrip Photos.
2: Click the Page Setup button. Set Orientation to Portrait and select Manage Custom Sizes from the Paper Size menu.
3: Click the Plus icon at the bottom to add a new paper size. Set the Width to 5” (or 127 mm) and the Height to 6” (or 152.4 mm). Set the Margins to zero each. Click OK when you’re done.
4: Go to the Layout panel, set the Margins to zero and the Cell Size to Height 6” and Width 4”. That gives you the specification you asked for.
5: Go to the Print Job panel and set Print to: to JPEG file. Check the Print Sharpening box if you want to apply output sharpening.
6: When you’re ready to go click the Print to File button to start the export process.
Q: How do I make a contact sheet in the Print module and export it as a JPEG? I took several hundred photographs at a school event and want to show them to the student and let him decide which ones he wants.
A: You can see the step by step instructions for making a contact sheet below.
When it’s ready go to the Print Job panel in the Print module and set Print to: to JPEG File. Then click the Print to File button at the bottom and Lightroom will export the contact sheets as JPEG files.
Another option is to send the photos to a synced Collection and click the Make Public button at the top of the screen. This generates a web gallery and a url you can give to somebody so they can view your photos and select the ones they like. This may be the simplest solution for you.
1: To make the contact sheet go to the Print module and open the Template Browser at the top of the left-hand panels. Look for the four contact sheet templates in the Lightroom Templates folder. Click on the 4×5 Contact Sheet template. Set Use in the Toolbar to All Filmstrip Photos (press ‘T’ on the keyboard to show the Toolbar if you can’t see it).
2: There’s room for up to 20 thumbnails on the page (five rows of four). If there’s more than 20 photos in the Collection, Lightroom makes extra pages as needed.
3: If you don’t want to include filenames then go to the Page panel and uncheck the Photo Info box.
4: You can change the numbers of Rows and Columns in the Layout panel. Play around with these and the Cell Spacing and Cell Size settings to alter the number of photos displayed on one page. An advantage of digital contact sheets is that you can choose to place fewer thumbnails on each page making them easier to see.
Q: Is it possible to determine if a color is saturated to the point of being out of gamut? Does the histogram tell you this? What exactly does the phrase “out of gamut” refer to?
A: Gamut refers to the color range that an output device can display or print.
Your monitor has a color gamut, as does an inkjet printer. Even printed magazines and books have a color gamut (in this case people refer to the gamut of the CMYK color space, which has a smaller gamut than the sRGB or Adobe RGB color spaces).
The histogram gives you a guide to color saturation but you can’t use it to see if colors are out of gamut. The only way you can do that is with Lightroom Classic’s soft proofing tool. This tool lets you check if any colors in the photo are outside the gamut of your monitor or a selected printer / paper combination.
Go to the Develop module and check the Soft Proofing box in the Toolbar.
If soft-proofing for print, select the printer / paper profile from the Profile menu.
Above the histogram you’ll see two small icons. Click the one on the left (Show/Hide Monitor Gamut Warning) to display any colors that your monitor can’t display in blue.
Click the one on the right (Show/Hide Destination Gamut Warning) to display any colors that your selected printer / paper combination can’t display in red.
Above: Select the paper Profile you want to soft proof for in Proof Settings.
Above: With Saturation set to zero this photo doesn’t display any out of gamut warnings.
Above: But with Saturation set to 100 the Soft Proofing tool shows areas that are out of gamut with my selected paper / printer combination in red. These colors are too saturated to print accurately on my printer.
Q: Is there a method to pre-determine the size of a crop in Lightroom Classic? If I start with dimensions of 6000 x 4000 and know that I want to be at or above 5400 x 3600, in order to print 18”x12″, can I achieve that mark in the Develop module without having to go to the Library module to view the cropped dimension?
A: No there isn’t. But it will help if you think of the Crop tool of having two functions.
The first is to crop for compositional reasons (such as cropping out a distraction at the edge of the frame). Pixel dimensions are irrelevant here, so that’s why they’re not given.
The second is for Aspect Ratio (which is related to composition but also relevant for cropping to a certain print size, as in your example). Again, no pixel dimensions are given because they’re not needed. The important figure is the ratio of one side of the frame too the other. In your case the aspect ratio is 3:2 so you can set that in the Crop tool (marked “2×3 / 4×6”).
You mention wanting your photos to be at or above 5400 x 3600, in order to print at 18″x12″ size, but you can be relaxed about that. You’ll be surprised at how well smaller photos print at large sizes. If there is a problem, you can use the Super Resolution tool (Photo > Enhance) to enlarge the photo to four times its size without any loss in image quality.
Above: Click the Aspect menu to select a different aspect ratio for your crop.
Above: To enlarge your photo Go to Photo > Enhance and check the Super Resolution box. Lightroom uses AI to enlarge the photo to four times its size without loss of image quality. It saves the result as a new DNG file. Click the Enhance button to start the process.
These Print module questions are straight out of my new ebook Lightroom Classic Q&A II : 101 More Readers’ Questions Answered.
The book features 101 genuine questions from readers about Lightroom Classic. The answers are expanded, illustrated and fully updated for Lightroom Classic 14.2 (the February 2025 release).
Click here to learn more or buy
