Photo printing app for Mac

April 14, 2023 6:45 AM

I am looking for a simple app that will let me print photos at specified sizes. For my current project, I have about 50 photos that I want to print at 4 x 6 inches, two per page. I will then cut them out and put them in frames.

I could do this by importing the photos into Apples Photos app, but I would rather not add them to my library. In addition, it would be nice to have options that Photos doesn't provide. For example, it would be nice to be able to specify the size on a per photo basis, so I could have a page with one 4x6 and one 5x7 print. It would also be nice to be able to specify cropping and padding for photos.

When I search around I see lots of apps for making collages, and lots of apps that connect you to a commercial printing service. I'm looking for something simpler than that: something that will let me print at home a whole bunch of photos at specified sizes, more than one per page.

posted by Winnie the Proust to Media & Arts (11 answers total)

Response by poster: I'd be happy to pay a small amount of money for the app, but this isn't for work so I don't want a big expense.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:46 AM on April 14, 2023

You could just place the photos two per page in Pages and resize them.
posted by jonathanhughes at 7:51 AM on April 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yeah, this is one of the things that Pages is for.

Make a new document, do File > Convert to Page Layout (so the page becomes like a freeform canvas rather a word processing document). You can drag photos from the Finder onto the page (Or do Media > Choose from the toolbar—they definitely don't have to be in the Photos app) and resize them however you want, and you can mask/resize them within their boundary boxes to crop or pad.

If you aren't good with manual resizing there are good tools for setting exact image sizes in the right sidebar under the "Arrange" tab when an image is selected.
posted by bcwinters at 7:59 AM on April 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Interesting, I hadn't thought of Pages. I just tried it, and while it works it is pretty heavy weight process. You have to add every photo and place it and adjust the size and possibly crop it. It's good to know this is an option, but it'd still be nice to have an app that lets you drop in a whole bunch of photos and automatically places them all on pages, one after the other, at a default size.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 8:23 AM on April 14, 2023

You can try tricks in Preview. See this link for details.
posted by blob at 8:28 AM on April 14, 2023

Unless there is a really good reason to not outsource it, like personal nudes or you want color correct fine art giclée prints where cost is no object, I'd strongly recommend that you look to outsource the printing. (I'd also outsource the giclée stuff too but to a fine art specialty printer. 12 ink printers can be a real pain.)

I gave up with at-home printing over a decade ago. It was faster, easier, and the output was better when I stopped trying to get my photo printer to work correctly. The amount of ink that you will burn through doing it yourself will probably make the outsource option look cheap. Plus you don't have to worry about things like color profiles, clogged nozzles, etc.

4x6 is a common size that will cost you about $0.30 cents each at your local Walgreens and you can typically cut that in half with a coupon code. Your 50 4x6 print project would cost about $15 total and be ready in an hour. It would cost me significantly more to try and print it myself on my home printer just from an ink perspective. If you need something really custom from a size / crop / padding perspective then you can use an app like one of the ones listed above to place the photo inside of a larger image with cut lines. Or you can use a service that offers custom sizes. The higher end services also offer archival inks and papers that can often be a bit trickier to deal with.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 9:10 AM on April 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

seconding SegFaultCoreDump's rec. Walgreens makes these projects a breeze. *if* you don't need super high quality. Your time has a value.
posted by DigDoug at 10:01 AM on April 14, 2023

If it helps, you can download 4x6 templates from Avery (who have bajillion pre-cut paper, labels, whatnots) and the template you want is 5889. it's technically for greeting cards, but it's 2 4" x 6" greeting cards on letter size paper. And they have a template for Apple Pages free here:

https://www.avery.com/templates/8386

If you prefer to work even easier, you can upload stuff to Avery's print shop called Avery WePrint

But if you want Photo printing, I third your local pharmacy.
posted by kschang at 11:08 AM on April 14, 2023

I'm a designer who teaches print layout design classes -- we request the students to go directly to a copy shop, and I teach them how to edit their graphics using Adobe Creative Cloud. I totally emphathize with your ask and now I want to write it down as a programming project for me on my very long to do list, but for now, I would make friends with your friendly neighborhood copy shop and ask them for help on this, they could help you format and print this and you would be supporting a local business.
posted by yueliang at 2:19 AM on April 15, 2023

I could do this by importing the photos into Apples Photos app, but I would rather not add them to my library.

You can have more than one library in Photos.app so you could create a separate library for this project.

Another trick I use in Photos: if I want multiple copies of a photo, I just dupcliate it within Photos, select all the copies, then print those. I've found this easier than trying to use Print / Layout to do a 2-up or 4-up version.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 8:44 AM on April 15, 2023

Adobe Lightroom is good at this. If you're just doing a one-off project you might be able to get it done in the trial period (otherwise it require an annual subscription ~$120/yr).
posted by bradbane at 2:11 PM on April 15, 2023