Printing two 4x6 photos on one page

Brian,

Two 4x6's do fit onto a 8x11 sheet. (actually 8.5" x 11")

Print in portrait mode:
Page is 8.5" wide - Pics are 6" wide (1.5" left over)
Page is 11" tall - Pics on top of each other are 2x4" = 8" (3" left over)

When printing in contact sheets it doesn't give size selection. Also does contact sheets print higher quality?

-Erik

Thanks for the help.

I was hoping for an easier "out of the box" selection. I discovered this same solution playing around with the application but it seemed like this was a lot of work and there should be a simple way. It's simple in iPhoto.

A couple questions about this method:


Question 1:
I can only get this method to work as a Contact Sheet Preset. I noticed that Single Image presets have more resolution and quality options. Normally Contact sheets aren't meant for quality, final prints. Is the Contact Sheets as good a quality as a Single Image print?

Second question:
This setup is very slow on my MacBook Pro 2.6GHz. With every tweak of the preset settings, I get the spinning color wheel for about 10 seconds. Is this normal when you have multiple pictures selected? I had about 6 pictures highlighted. I heard some people complaining Aperture slowed down when they upgraded to Snow Leopard. I upgraded but didn't use this part of the program before, so I can't tell if this is due to SL or just the way it always was.

Thanks

Jade,

Thanks for the book solution. I tried it and can get two pictures per page. Let me know if I did it correctly. I created a new book and set up the pages to display the way I want. Now I select my pictures and drag them into each cell. Basically building a book picture by picture. Then print the book. Is this the correct method?

Like the other suggestion, this is a process that takes much more effort than iPhoto or other photo software packages where you simply select pictures, select size and print. I guess the end result is that I can get it done, so I shouldn't complain. To explain, this whole thing started because my wife wanted me to print some pictures for her to take to a reunion. I said "sure, I'll print them out real quick". Real quick turned into a long process of trying to figure out how to get two 4x6 pictures per page. Meanwhile listening to my "Windows using" wife tell me how easy it is with Microsoft's free photo editor. This started the Microsoft vs Apple conversation. I explained back that Apple's free iPhoto software can easily do it as well. The end result was the "software that I purchased for our photo library" can't easily do it. Aperture is great for many things and maybe this simple printing feature isn't supposed to be one of them. Maybe in the next release.

-Erik

Calx,

Yes, it is much quicker now that the template is created. But, unless I am doing it incorrectly, it is still a manual process. Let's say I want to print 24 4x6 pictures. I open my template, now drag each of the 24 pictures one at a time to an empty cell on a page. It works and is very flexible as far as creating sizes and arrangements. My only comment is that printing 4x6 prints is a common thing. I would have expected it to operate the way it does in most every other photo program. Select 24 pictures, hit print, select 8.5x11 sheet, select 4x6 sizes, select quality, and let them spit out two per page, done.

But in the end, I can do it now and I appreciate everyone's input.

-Erik

Thanks for the tip. That reduces a lot of steps.

-Erik