In a perfect world, computers would operate flawlessly and hard drives would last forever. Unfortunately neither event occurs. Computers will crash when you least expect them to, and if they crash hard, they're liable to corrupt some of your files. In this regard, you should always archive your digital images, and archive them frequently. That way if the worst-case scenario happens, you have backups of your digital images. CD discs are dirt cheap. Some people may think it's more logical to archive files to a DVD disc, but neither CDs nor DVDs are infallible. If a DVD disc is damaged, you lose almost 5GB of images. If a CD disc goes bad, you lose 700MB of images.
Create a Contact Sheet
When you've got hundreds of images stored on your hard drive, you use the File Browser to view a thumbnail image of the file before opening it. However, when you run low on hard disk space and save your files to CD discs before deleting them from the hard drive, you'll have to pop each disc in the CD drive and then search for the desired files with the File Browser—a tedious task at best. Fortunately, there is a better way. You can create a contact sheet for the images you store on CD discs. A contact sheet is a printed page that shows thumbnail-size pictures of image files. You can then store printed contact sheets in a loose-leaf binder for future reference.
Choose File | Print Layouts | Contact Sheet to open the dialog box shown here.
- Click the Browse button to open the Browse for Folder dialog box.
- Browse to the folder that contains the images for which you want to create a contact sheet.
- Click the Include All Subfolders check box to add images in the subfolders to your contact sheet.
- Type values in the Width and Height fields to specify the document size of the contact sheet.
- Type a value in the Resolution field.
- Click the down arrow to the right of the Mode field and choose RGB Color or Grayscale from the drop-down menu.
- Accept the default Flatten All Layers option and Photoshop Elements will flatten the image before shrinking it to thumbnail size. This does not alter the original file in any way. Leave this option selected, as the resulting thumbnail file will be a smaller file size.
- Click the down arrow to the right of the Place field and choose an option from the drop-down menu. This option determines how Photoshop Elements places the thumbnails in the finished document. Your options are Across First, which fills the contact sheet from right to left by rows, or Down First, which fills the contact sheet from top to bottom one column at a time.
- Type values in the Columns and Rows fields. This determines how many thumbnails Photoshop Elements fits on a sheet. As you enter different values, the Width and Height information fields change to show you what size the resulting thumbnails will be.
- Accept the default Use Filename as Caption option. This option prints the filename below the thumbnail, which enables you to cross reference the thumbnail with the filename and select the proper image.
- Click the down arrow to the right of the Font field and choose the desired font from the drop-down menu.
Click the down arrow to the right of the Font Size field and choose the desired option from the drop-down menu.
If you're creating a contact sheet for images with long filenames, type lower values in the Columns and Rows field to create bigger thumbnails and choose a smaller font size to display the entire filename below each contact sheet image.
Click OK. Photoshop Elements resizes the images and creates the contact sheet. This process may take a considerable amount of time if you're creating contact sheets for a folder that contains a lot of images. The following illustration shows an example of one-page contact sheet.
Choose File | Save to save the file in the desired format for future printing or future use. Alternatively, choose File | Print to print the contact sheet immediately and close the file without saving.
While you're using your computer's operating system to add image folders to the archive folder, pay attention to the overall size of the folder. Make sure you don't exceed the available space available on the CD media to which you'll archive the files.
Archive Images to CD Discs
After you've created contact sheets and copied the image folders you want to archive into different folders, you're ready to archive the files to a CD disc. Windows and Macintosh operating systems both have built-in CD burning applications. Alternatively, you can purchase a third-party application such as Nero (Windows) or Toast (Macintosh).
Burning CD discs is processor intensive. To safeguard against a system crash, or corrupt data on a CD, exit all applications other than the one being used to burn the CD.
- Open the file folder that contains the files you're going to archive to disc.
- Insert a blank CD in a read/write CD drive. Your operating system recognizes the disc. If you're using a Windows-based computer, a dialog box opens offering you options. Select the option to open a writable folder. If you're using a Macintosh machine, a dialog box opens asking if you want to burn the disc.
Arrange the two windows side by side as shown next.
Drag and drop the files into the CD disc folder, as shown here.
- Write the files to the CD.
Don't use a regular marker to write on the CD disc. Regular markers can bleed through and damage your data. You can find CD- and DVD-safe markers at your local office supply store.
