---
title: "Contact sheet for film scans: your whole roll on one sheet"
description: "A contact sheet of your scanned roll: open the frames together, five to a row, edit them as one, and export the whole sheet as one file."
url: "https://open-negative-initiative.com/features/contact-sheet"
date: "2026-11-03"
---

[Features](https://open-negative-initiative.com/features)

# Contact sheets for scanned film

**Your whole roll, on one sheet.** Open your frames together, edit them in one gesture, and export them as a single contact sheet.

![The editor with nine frames of a roll open together, five to a row as a contact sheet, AUTO WHITE BALANCE acting on 9 photos, and the Exposure slider at -0.29 EV.](https://open-negative-initiative.com/_astro/editor-together.DU4Ejv_O_ZN7Wxt.webp)

## From your roll to its contact sheet, in three steps.

**Open the frames together, edit, export.** The sheet is the editor itself: the panel works on every frame it shows.

- **Open the roll together.** **Prepare the Roll** opens it that way on its own. Later, press the orange **Select the Whole Roll** key in the bar (`⌘A`, or `Ctrl+A` on Windows), or select a few frames in the gallery and open one.
- **Edit them as one.** Exposure, colour, any step on the open frame lands on every frame of the sheet at the same value.
- **Export one sheet.** Press **EXP. CONTACT SHEET** in the toolbar, or choose **Contact Sheet** under Export As: one file for the whole roll.

## Every frame of your roll, side by side.

**Five to a row, numbered as on the film.** See the whole roll at once, the way it prints, and compare a frame with its neighbours before you touch it.

[Read the research](https://open-negative-initiative.com/features/contact-sheet#the-research)

![A contact sheet on black: nine colour frames from one roll, five to a row, each numbered in orange beneath it, the Open Negative Initiative logo at the bottom left.](https://open-negative-initiative.com/_astro/contact-sheet-export.CWbJl5Ac_19iwwm.webp)

***The sheet the app wrote for nine frames of a roll.** The file EXP. CONTACT SHEET exports: five frames to a row on black, each 1024 pixels on its longest side and numbered from its roll in orange under it, the app's logo at the foot.*

## What it changes when you edit a roll.

**One gesture for the roll, each frame still its own.** The sheet lays a look on the whole roll; what belongs to one negative stays with it.

- **Same look, every frame.** A step on the open frame lands on the others at the same value, and one undo takes it back from all of them.
- **Each frame keeps its own.** Its file, its crop, its dust corrections and its roll never travel to the others.
- **Auto White Balance across the roll.** On frames open together, it takes the average of their balances: one look across them.

## Contact sheets: questions

**Making, editing and exporting the sheet.** The short answers first, then the detail.

### How do I make a contact sheet of a roll?

Prepare the Roll opens your roll that way on its own. Later, press the orange Select the Whole Roll key in the bar, or ⌘A (Ctrl+A on Windows), or select a few frames in the gallery and open one: they open together, five to a row. Then press EXP. CONTACT SHEET in the toolbar: one file.

### Does an edit on the sheet change every frame?

Yes. Every step you take on the open frame lands on the others at the same value, as one step. Each frame keeps its own file, crop, dust corrections and roll.

### How are the frames numbered?

By their place on their roll, under each frame: orange on a black sheet, or dark red on a white one when every frame is a slide or another positive.

### How big is the exported sheet?

Each frame is laid 1024 pixels on its longest side. The Size field sets the pixels of the whole sheet; it never enlarges, and left empty it writes the full resolution.

### What do converted frames look like?

[See all sixteen conversions](https://open-negative-initiative.com/gallery), real photographs converted in Open Negative Initiative, each with its raw scan.

## The rest of the conversion.

**From your scan to your export.** One page per feature.

- [One measurement per roll Measured from all its frames.](https://open-negative-initiative.com/features/roll-measurement)
- [Colour management What you edit is what you export.](https://open-negative-initiative.com/features/colour-management)
- [Density inversion Every stop gets the same room.](https://open-negative-initiative.com/features/density-inversion)
- [Chroma denoise Colour noise goes, grain stays.](https://open-negative-initiative.com/features/chroma-denoise)
- [Archive and Projects Your folders are the catalogue.](https://open-negative-initiative.com/features/archive-and-projects)
- [Dust and scratches You paint, your photo patches.](https://open-negative-initiative.com/features/dust-and-scratches)
- [Export and EXIF Your camera, lens and film.](https://open-negative-initiative.com/features/export-and-exif)
- [All features What the app does, one page per feature.](https://open-negative-initiative.com/features)

## Convert your first roll tonight.

**Add your folder, prepare the roll once, export.** Free, and nothing else to install.

[Download for Mac](https://github.com/5e1y/open-negative-initiative-releases/releases/latest/download/OpenNegative.dmg) · [Download for Windows](https://github.com/5e1y/open-negative-initiative-releases/releases/latest/download/ONI-windows.zip)

[How to convert a film negative, step by step](https://open-negative-initiative.com/guide)

- **Mac**: macOS 13 or later on Apple Silicon or Intel
- **Windows**: Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit)

[Blocked at first launch?](https://open-negative-initiative.com/download#verify)

![A snowy Paris street at night, a lit cafe under arcades, tyre tracks in the snow.](https://open-negative-initiative.com/media/carousel/snow-night-1400.webp)

***Snow night.** Kodak Gold, converted in Open Negative Initiative.*

## The research.

**From the darkroom to your scans.** How photographers read a roll, why a series needs one look, and what the sheet you export holds.

| What | In the darkroom | In Open Negative Initiative |
| --- | --- | --- |
| The frames | Strips of negatives pressed on photographic paper under glass | Your scans, five to a row, as positives |
| Their size | Each frame at its own size, from one exposure | Each frame 1024 pixels on its longest side |
| The numbers | Printed along the film's edge | Each frame's place on its roll, under it |
| Choosing | A loupe and a grease pencil | The frames side by side in the editor, edited together |

***The same overview, from your scans.** A darkroom contact sheet, and the one the app lays from your roll.*

### What a contact sheet is

In the darkroom, a contact sheet is the first print of a roll: its strips of negatives laid straight on a sheet of photographic paper, pressed flat under glass and exposed once. Every frame comes out at its own size, as a positive, with the frame numbers printed along the film's edge.

Photographers read it with a loupe and mark the keepers with a grease pencil before printing anything larger. Open Negative Initiative lays the same overview from your scans: the frames of a roll five to a row, each numbered by its place on the roll.

***A roll, frame by frame.** Illustrative exposures of a 24-frame roll, in stops from a good exposure. Seen together, frames 13 to 17 stand out as a run of thin frames: the camera, not the scan.*

### Read the roll before you edit a frame

Seen together, frames tell what one frame alone cannot. A run of thin, pale frames points to underexposure in the camera rather than a bad scan; a colour that drifts from one frame to the next shows where the light changed; the sequence shows how a shoot went, and which frame of a series is the one.

Then edit where it pays: with the frames open together, a step on the open frame lands on the others at the same value, so a correction you see is needed on the whole roll is made once.

***Nine balances, or one.** Illustrative: how far the balance each frame would take on its own strays, frame by frame. A red wall and a green lawn pull theirs toward their subject; open together, the nine share the average of their balances, the dashed line.*

### One look across a series

Frames shown together must match: a series in which every frame has its own white balance reads as a set of strangers. Balanced one by one, a frame filled with a red wall or a green lawn pulls its balance toward its subject, and away from its neighbours.

On frames open together, Auto White Balance takes the average of their balances, so the light of the whole set decides rather than the subject of one frame.

| How you open them | What goes on the sheet |
| --- | --- |
| A few frames selected in the gallery, one of them opened | The frames you selected, in the gallery's order |
| The orange **Select the Whole Roll** key, or `⌘A` (`Ctrl+A` on Windows) | The whole roll of the photo you are on |
| **Prepare the Roll**, once the roll is measured | The roll, the open frame leading |

***Three ways to open a sheet.** Each opens the frames together in the editor, five to a row.*

### Which frames go on the sheet

The ones you selected in the gallery, in its order; with the orange **Select the Whole Roll** key or `⌘A`, the whole roll of the photo you are on. **Prepare the Roll** also opens the roll this way once it is measured, the open frame leading.

A frame whose size is not known yet holds a 3:2 place until its thumbnail lands.

| Frames on the sheet | The sheet | The numbers |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Negatives, or a mix | Black, the way a negative prints | Orange |
| Positives only, slides for instance | White, as paper is | Dark red |

***Black or white, decided by the frames.** Each number is the frame's place on its roll, to match with the number on the edge of its strip.*

### Numbered as on the film

Each frame carries the number of its place on its roll. Match it to the number printed on the edge of the strip in your negative sleeve, and you find the very negative to rescan, or to print in the darkroom.

The sheet lies on black, numbers in orange, the way a negative prints. When every frame on it is a positive, a slide for instance, it lies on white, as paper does, with the numbers in dark red.

| Frames | Rows | Full-resolution sheet |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 9 frames | 2 | 5360 × 2116 px |
| 12 frames | 3 | 5360 × 2918 px |
| 24 frames | 5 | 5360 × 4524 px |
| 36 frames | 8 | 5360 × 6932 px |

***How big the sheet gets.** At full resolution, for landscape 3:2 frames: five frames of 1024 pixels to a row, 30 pixels apart, 120 between rows, and the logo's band at the foot. The Size field writes it smaller, never larger.*

### Export the sheet, keep it with the negatives

**EXP. CONTACT SHEET** in the toolbar, or **Contact Sheet** under [Export As](https://open-negative-initiative.com/manual/export#export-as), writes one file: each frame 1024 pixels on its longest side, five to a row above the app's logo. The **Size** field counts the pixels of the whole sheet, and an empty Size writes it at full resolution.

Send it to a client or a lab to choose the frames to print, or print it and file it with the sleeves: an index of the roll that you read without a screen.