Lightroom Presets

Lightroom Print Presets – Multi-Photo Custom Grid

I’ve got a pretty cool Print module preset this time around. It utilizes the new Custom Print Package feature in Lightroom 3. It’s based on a 12×12 inch paper size. There’s room for 15 photos in it which makes a really nice way to show off some travel photos or even a portrait session. Here’s how it works: First download and import the new print template. Look at the directions below and make sure you DON’T install this in the Develop module like you do the rest of the presets. In the Print module, go to User Presets and select the new template. It’ll show a blank page and all you have to do is drag your photos from the filmstrip into it. The bottom left corner is reserved for an Identity Plate so you can put your name (or studio name) there. I created the one you see below in Photoshop and used it graphic option in the Identity Plate.

Here’s a few samples (Click for a larger version).


(Photo Border option turned off)


(Photo Border option turned on, Page Background Color set to white)


(Photo Border option turned on, Page Background Color set to black)

Customize – you can also customize this one by changing the “Page Background Color” option as well as the Photo Border settings at the top right of the Print module.

These are a little different to install than your usual Develop presets:
1) Unzip the preset zip file on to your desktop
2) Go to the PRINT MODULE (NOTE: THESE ARE NOT DEVELOP PRESETS SO DON’T INSTALL THEM THERE!)
3) Go to the Template Browser on the left. Right click on the words User Presets and choose “Import“.
4) Select the .lrtemplate file you unzipped in Step 1 and click Import (NOTE: DO NOT IMPORT THE ZIP FILE)

• Click here to download the preset.

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83 comments

  1. Laura 11 September, 2015 at 15:18 Reply

    Where are ALL these FREE Presets you have ALL around PINTEREST—then when you go to the page & click

    “• Click here to download the preset.”

    Then a page comes up ERROR!!!

    Where are they???

    This is STUPID!!!

  2. Blake 13 September, 2012 at 13:42 Reply

    “The preset file was the wrong type of preset.”

    This is the message I’m getting when trying to import this preset into L 4.2 RC… how do I get around this problem?

    fwiw L 4.2 RC is also having problems with some sunflare presets, I don’t remember if they’re yours or not.

    Thanks for any help you can provide!

  3. Mike 27 August, 2012 at 22:06 Reply

    Matt,
    My question sounds easy in my head but may sound complicated in text. Is there a way to do whatever size of the same thing your doing with the 12×12. Such the case if I wanted to do something bigger or smaller is it just a matter of adjusting a slider in LR3/4 or what? Im trying to do one large collage of divided pics and mixed sizes within one large canvas/frame. I was going to make the template, fill it, and make it like one file, and get it printed at pro print shop.
    Thanks
    Mike

  4. shirley 25 June, 2011 at 08:15 Reply

    I can’t get it to work for me. Any chance you could share how to create a custom grid? I imported to the ‘user templates’ when in the Print section (no user presets option in this window. Click and drag images to the page but it won’t display any images at all.
    thx.

  5. Alvin 19 June, 2011 at 23:38 Reply

    Great website for tips. I’m new to using the Print module, and was wondering if anyone knew how to “export” these photos instead of printing them. That is, export the whole collage as a jpeg to display like Matt is doing here on the web, or to have a digital portfolio.

  6. brinx 7 June, 2011 at 09:29 Reply

    thanks for the template..

    but i have a problem i can’t set my page to 12×12 dimension..what i mean is i tried the custom dimension and set it to 12×12 but every time i apply the preset it always ends up to 8×11 dimension

    can anyone help me with this?

  7. Nicole 9 February, 2011 at 23:15 Reply

    Thanks for the trick.
    I think, my photos are too bright to begin with (on the screen), so printing them I rarely had a problem,now I know why 😉

    I had to argue with a printer the other day. I had the same photo printed in small and in A4. In A4 the colours were yucky and the tones too dark. He was like: It’s the photo. Right. He recalibrated his settings in the machine a bit et voila, my print came out correct. Mpf,… guess he was quite peeved that a woman was right, gotta love the Middle East 😉

  8. Steve Sawyer 15 January, 2011 at 14:07 Reply

    Your the Man,

    I saw this preset a couple months ago but just got around to downloading it, I threw a few photo’s in it then showed some friends. WOW, did they love it… And for the record, I gave you all the credit for the template 🙂

    You have saved alot of us many ‘head slamming nights’ trying to figure out cool stuff to do in LR, much appreciated.

    Thanks
    Steve

  9. Dennis Duncan 7 January, 2011 at 10:11 Reply

    Thanks Matt for the great layout keep em cumming, this is just what I have been look for to Show case some great photos.

  10. Thomas 29 November, 2010 at 08:45 Reply

    Hi Matt,

    sorry that i’m trying to contact you via this message form but i have a serious question about printing an preset paper sizes.
    Here in Germany we have different DIN sizes (A0, A1, A”, etc …) but i cant see any, working in Photoshop for example is no problem but in Lighroom it seem that i have to set up everything manually.

    Also I’m baffled with the proportional resizing of picture onto canvas. Lightroom does not accept commands like PS does if you resize a picture propotionally (center, corner, etc.)

    Are these limitations by LR or I’m stupid enough to read the manual?

    Thank you!
    Thomas

  11. John Jury 11 November, 2010 at 13:41 Reply

    Hi Matt, I follow all your LR3 and CS5 Killer Tips and Kelby videos, thank you I certainly could not manage without them.
    Having downloaded the multi-print preset and amended it for UK A4 paper size, when I drag a photo into position, then change my mind and delete it, the cell is also deleted? Is there another way to remove a photo?

  12. Manny 11 November, 2010 at 12:11 Reply

    Hi Matt,

    Great template! In windows you can use the CTRL key and the mouse to move the image around in a cell, is there any way i can zoom into a picture?

    Thanks

    • sean elliott 15 April, 2011 at 07:44 Reply

      This isnt an answer as I dont think there is one right now, this is one feature im amazed the adobe have overlooked! infact as a full time pro photograoher who would love to use lightroom to deisgn all my wedding albums, this is the one feature that preventing me from doing so. If anyone out there does know of a magic combination of keys that enables you to postiion and recompose an image in a cell using zoom to recrop the image that would be the perfect. i use pro show producer for slideshow and a simple scrill of a mousewheel allow you to zoom into a cell.. thats all i need!

  13. Angela 20 October, 2010 at 23:23 Reply

    Ok…I must be a complete idiot…but someone has to help me!!!! So I got the present imported into print. I’m having tons of issues. When I click on the import it looks like a sheet of paper with no grid. My filmstrip will not let me drag and drop, it has a circle with a line through it to say I can’t drag. What am I doing wrong? Why is this not working for me? someone help me please and spell out the steps for me! ! 😉

  14. David 13 September, 2010 at 12:55 Reply

    Hey Matt!

    I am trying to discern if I can use the print module to setup blog layouts that are featured on many photographers blogs. Such as 4 detail shots in a configured layout. The idea is to maybe print to a JPEG file, and then run a resizing action on it and then upload it to my blog.

    However, I am having huge problems with it fitting into this type of workflow. For instance, there is always a big margin around the outside of my content, which I cannot seem to get rid of, so I have to take it into Photoshop and crop off the margins on the outside, to get to the content in the middle. Is there any way of configuring the page layout in the print module to not have any margins?

    I’m trying to create the multi-image picture that is featured here in my blog: http://www.davidmacvicar.com/blog/index.php/2009/11/22/andrew-amy-wedding/ with all of the details. Anyway of doing this succesfully in LR?

    • NikoJorj 15 September, 2010 at 04:26 Reply

      To get rid of the margins, you have to set the printer to borderless mode, and therefore to use a printer that can print borderless – most of the virtual PDF printers should do it.

  15. William Collins 12 September, 2010 at 17:21 Reply

    Hey somebody….I have been screwing with this preset all afternoon…..Would some please tell me how to use it,,,,Using 3.2…..Man, I can’t even figure out how to get the darn photos in it….

    Thanks anybody…

    PS Great looking preset that Matt has posted…..LOOKS GREAT! Would like to use it….

  16. Russell Masters 9 September, 2010 at 06:56 Reply

    Matt, great tip but I hope you dont mind me sharing a variation on this.

    Just to spread the word .. I found some software on the internet this week which goes one step further and allows you to build a cool photomosaic (where the background image is composed using tiled photos).

    Best of all its free …

    http://homepage.mac.com/knarf/MacOSaiX/

    I tried it yesterday and made a cool mosaic of a flag. Its a gift for a friend so I cant post the link but there are examples on the website. Only warning I have is that depending on how many tiles and how stringent you are with adjacent duplicates, they can take some time to build.

    Russ

  17. Amy 7 September, 2010 at 12:06 Reply

    Feeling stupid…have no idea what I’m doing wrong. Imported just fine, yes, in print module, but it doesn’t work for me. I figured out how to change the paper size and all that, but the function of making the images into a collage is not working at all. 🙁 Can someone please help me?!

  18. NikoJorj 6 September, 2010 at 05:45 Reply

    Thanks!

    Another question : I’ve restored the format to square and re-arranged the layout, now every photo of my filmstrip goes neatly into one of the frames…
    How do I save this arrangement?
    If I right-click “Update with current settings” on the preset, just like I did with the custom package hack in LR2, it just brings the empty layout and I must again drag the photos into the frames.

  19. Kathleen D 2 September, 2010 at 16:33 Reply

    Love this. I have tons of my own templates like this for digital layouts. How about a tutorial on how to a layout we have in PS and make it into a preset in LR print module?

  20. Nikki Mason 29 August, 2010 at 12:05 Reply

    When I Print to File, a couple of the images get stretched wider or narrower so that it distorts the images. Any idea why this is happening? The Print One button is also deselected.

    • Nikki Mason 29 August, 2010 at 13:21 Reply

      Okay, blonde moment with the Print button not available. Had print to: set to JPEG file but I still can’t fix the minor distortions.

  21. RLA10 26 August, 2010 at 15:51 Reply

    Hi Matt,

    As always you are the best.

    Show us mortals how to change the size to fit different papers.

    Thanks, See you in Vegas, but don’t stay there.

    Bob

  22. Richard 25 August, 2010 at 17:01 Reply

    When I open this template it doesn’t apply the correct paper size (square) but applies the printer’s default paper size (in my case A4) or the last size used.
    @Eric and others: When I select ‘print to file’ and adjust the ‘Custom file dimension’ the layout is stretched out.

    This applies to all other templates as well. No matter what template I choose, it’s always using the same paper size.In some cases you get ugly results.

    Is it true that you cannot save a paper size to a template, or at least the ratio? I now first select a correct Printer paper size in the ‘Page setup’ window before opening a template. Or is there a way to do it differently?

    • Eric 26 August, 2010 at 13:31 Reply

      I had to move the cells around to get the layout back to the 12×12. Not sure if my initial import messed it up (it defaulted to my printer’s default size, too.) The updated template loaded fine on my other machine, however.

      I’m using LR 3.2 RC on Windows so I wondered if that was why it was squished up.

  23. Joe Barranco 25 August, 2010 at 12:14 Reply

    This is awesome. Just what I was looking for.
    Is there a way to move photo around in a cell? When I drop a photo in a cell it’s not quite centered.

  24. ingoman 25 August, 2010 at 10:38 Reply

    hi matt, great template, thanks for sharing. nice to see muzna “smiling” from the pictures above. was a great shooting with you in dubai!
    take care and greetings from munich
    ingoman

  25. toby 25 August, 2010 at 09:54 Reply

    Thanks Matt, this is great. Just have one query, is it possible to move the photos around within each frame because they just take up their position and some of them are not framed where I want them, kinda cropped in the wrong place. At he only way I have found to fix this is to go to the Dev module a crop to shape there which is a pain in the bottom.

  26. Sergio 25 August, 2010 at 07:01 Reply

    As Richard pointed out, it would be helpful to indicate the paper size, or ideally instructions on how to adapt the preset to any size. Thank you.

  27. Lennart 25 August, 2010 at 03:57 Reply

    Concur, with Richard. There must be some dependencies on paperr size thats not included in the equation. Ive tried with A3 and A4 with no luck. Maybe theres a bug also involved since the template looks okay in the preview window, but messed up in the windows pane.

  28. Luca 25 August, 2010 at 03:13 Reply

    I’ve the same problem of Richard: if a different page format is defined when you select your template (which is great by the way: thanks !!) it destroys the boxes disposition shrinking them all. when resizing teh page, it does not bring it back to normal.

  29. Bill K 25 August, 2010 at 01:36 Reply

    Matt, when I load your preset, it looks a lot different than the preview. Is that because I have 8.5×11 paper selected? How do I get a squarer layout like yours?

  30. Bill K 25 August, 2010 at 01:32 Reply

    Matt, when I load your preset, it looks different than the preview. Is it because I have 8.5×11 page selected? Your page looks much more square. What size page is that?

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