How to Print Small Photos for Scrapbooking and Journals From iPhone

For a scrapbook or journal, print small photos several to a sheet of letter or A4 paper, then cut them apart. Your iPhone won’t size them, so lay them out in Apple’s free Pages app, or let iPrint Printer place them at your chosen size on an AirPrint printer.

Below: the sizes that suit pocket pages, journals and lockets, how many fit on one sheet, the free Pages route, the steps in the app, and how to cut prints this small without ruining them.

In this guide10 sections

Sizes that suit scrapbooks, journals and lockets

Start from the space the photo has to fill. Measure the pocket, the spot on the journal page or the opening of the locket, and print to that: a print a few millimetres too big is easy to trim, and one that’s too small is wasted. These are the sizes that come up most:

Pocket pages are the most standard of these: Project Life’s pages, for one, mix 4 x 6 and 3 x 4 pockets. A 3 x 4 also has the shape of a photo taken at 4:3, one of the iPhone Camera’s three aspect ratios, so the whole picture fits with nothing trimmed. Journals and album pages have no standard size, so anything that suits the page works; 2 x 3 in and Wallet are simply the two smallest presets in the app’s size menu, and Other Size covers everything else from 1 cm to 29.7 cm a side. The instax figure is Fujifilm’s picture size for instax mini film, if you like the mini-print look but want it from an ordinary printer.

How many small photos fit on one sheet

iPrint Printer never shrinks a print to squeeze more in. It places as many as fit inside a quarter-inch margin on letter or A4 (on 4 x 6 photo paper, the whole sheet), 3 mm apart so you can cut between them, which at the small sizes means up to:

The screen shows each sheet and how many prints fit, with a line such as “10 prints on 1 sheet of Letter”; a printer that reaches less of the sheet than that quarter-inch margin can fit fewer. Thirty photos at 2 x 3 in take three letter sheets. With Other Size, the same line gives the count for the size you typed.

Plan the 3 x 4s ahead. Four of them fit on a letter or A4 sheet, two across and two down, but only one fits on 4 x 6 photo paper: two would need the paper’s full 6 inches plus the 3 mm gap. For pocket-page prints, letter-size photo paper is the better buy.

Why your iPhone prints one big photo instead

Printing from the Photos app is Share, then Print (the whole of Apple’s steps), and the print screen has no size to choose. iOS sizes each photo to the paper, so you get large prints, not a sheet of small ones; why resizing the file doesn’t change that is covered in the resize guide. iOS 27 may offer a Pages per Sheet option; it shrinks each photo to fit, it doesn’t print a chosen size, so the prints won’t match a pocket or a locket opening.

Lay small photos out for free in Pages

Apple’s free Pages app prints a page exactly as you lay it out, so it can hold small photos at any sizes you like, even several different sizes on one page. The Pages steps in the 4x6 guide cover the setup: a blank letter or A4 document, a photo added, its width and height typed under Format, then Arrange. For a page of small prints, three things change:

• Copy the photos in one go. In Photos, tap Select, tap the photos, tap the More button, then Copy, and paste them into the document.
• Keep each one where you drag it. Select a photo, tap the Format button, tap Arrange and turn off Move with Text.
• Line up each row. Touch and hold one photo, tap the others in the row, then tap the Format button, Arrange and a button under Align and Distribute.

Leave a few millimetres between photos for cutting, and crop each one to the print’s shape in Photos first, since Pages keeps a photo’s proportions while Constrain Proportions is on. It’s free and flexible, and slow: thirty small photos mean thirty rounds of sizing and dragging. Print one page and measure a photo with a ruler before you print the rest.

Print a sheet of small photos with iPrint Printer

iPrint Printer does the layout: pick the photos, pick one size, and several go on each sheet whenever they fit, each print at exactly that size. It prints to printers that support AirPrint, on the same Wi-Fi as your iPhone; the free test page shows in one sheet whether yours does.

1. Open the app (called Printer on your Home Screen), tap Print Photos and pick your photos in Apple’s photo picker, up to 30 at a time.
2. Tap Size. Choose 2 × 3 in or Wallet (2.5 × 3.5 in) for journal-size prints, or Other Size… and type the width and height of your pocket or locket opening. In A4 countries the menu and Other Size use centimetres (2 × 3 in reads 5.1 × 7.6 cm); Wallet stays in inches.
3. Leave Copies of Each Photo at 1 for one print of every photo.
4. Set Paper in Your Printer to Letter or A4.
5. Swipe through the sheets on screen, then tap Print. The first time, choose your printer.

The prints follow the order you picked the photos in, and a new sheet starts when one is full. Every photo in a run prints at the same size, so for a mix, say 3 x 4s for the pocket pages and wallets for the journal, print one batch, then pick the next. Where turning a print sideways fits more on the sheet, the app turns it, so a tall photo can lie on its side; it’s upright again once you cut it out.

Small prints leave little room around a face. The app fills each print with the middle of the photo and dims what won’t print; tap the crop button next to a photo, drag or pinch it into place, and tap the check mark.

Before a full sheet, tap Print a Free Test Photo: it prints a sample picture the app draws, at your size and on your paper, so you can hold it against the pocket or the locket opening before you pay. When you then tap Print, the app checks that it can reach your printer before it shows any plans. Unlimited Printing is $4.99 a week, $9.99 a month or $49.99 a year, after a 3-day free trial for eligible new subscribers. The home page lists every size and how many fit on a sheet.

Small enough for a locket

Locket openings vary, so measure yours or use the template its maker supplies. Aspinal of London’s locket guide is a typical one: its oval locket’s template is 14.9 x 11 mm and its round locket’s 17.45 mm across, and it says to print the photo at 2 x 2 cm, lay the cut-out template over the print, trace around it and cut.

Other Size goes down to 1 cm a side (about 0.4 in), well below openings like these. Print a little larger than the template, as Aspinal’s 2 x 2 cm does, zoom in on the face with the crop button so it fills the print, then trim to the template. For an opening under 1 cm on one side, print at 1 cm and trim the extra. Prints come out rectangular; a heart or an oval is cut by hand, following the template.

Locket makers also ask for thicker paper than copy paper: Aspinal recommends 180 to 400 gsm. Check the heaviest paper your printer’s manual allows. Sharpness won’t be the problem: at 300 pixels per inch, a 1 cm print uses only about 120 pixels a side, far fewer than a photo from the iPhone’s camera has.

On iPad

An iPad is the comfortable place to lay out a page of small photos by hand: Pages for iPad has the same Format, then Arrange controls, with more room to drag and align them. Photos on iPad prints with the same Share, then Print steps in Apple’s iPad User Guide, so it still won’t make a sheet of small prints by itself. iPrint Printer runs on iPads with iPadOS 26 or later, with the same Size menu, Other Size and photo picker.

Paper and cutting

• Paper. Plain paper is fine for a trial sheet. Photo paper in letter or A4 size looks better in an album, and in the app it’s still Letter or A4. The app’s paper choices are Letter, A4 and 4 x 6 photo paper, nothing else.
• Strips first. Cut the sheet into strips along the 3 mm gaps, then cut each strip into single prints, then square each one up.
• A blade for the tiny ones. A paper trimmer is quickest for 2 x 3s and wallets. For locket prints, a craft knife against a metal ruler on a cutting mat gives more control than scissors.
• Cut just inside the image. Trimming a hair inside each print’s edge removes the last sliver of white, which shows more on a small print than a large one.

What iPrint Printer can’t do

• Print to anything but an AirPrint printer on the same Wi-Fi: no USB or Bluetooth, and not to instax, Sprocket or other pocket photo printers.
• Mix sizes in one run: every photo in a run prints at one size.
• Print edge to edge: each print sits inside the printer’s margins, with white paper around it to trim.
• Print shapes: prints are rectangles, and hearts or ovals are cut by hand.
• Print your own photos without a plan: the test page and the test photo are free, and your own photos need Unlimited Printing.

Printing a stack of one photo instead, for gifts or a whole class? Printing the same photo several times on one page covers copies, and the wallet-size guide has more on the two wallet sizes.

FAQ

What size should I print photos for a scrapbook?

Whatever fills the space you have: 4 x 6 in and 3 x 4 in for pocket pages such as Project Life, 2 x 3 in or 2.5 x 3.5 in for small photos on a page, and about 1 to 2 cm for a locket. Measure the pocket or the opening before you print.

How many small photos fit on one sheet?

In iPrint Printer, up to 10 at 2 x 3 in on letter or A4 paper, 8 wallets on letter or 9 on A4, and 4 at 3.5 x 5 in. Those counts, and the sheets on screen, assume the quarter-inch margin most printers keep; wider margins mean fewer per sheet and more sheets.

Can I print photos small enough for a locket?

Yes. Other Size in iPrint Printer goes down to 1 x 1 cm (about 0.4 in), which suits locket inserts of about 1 cm and up. Print at the insert’s size or a little larger, zoomed in on the face, then trim it to the locket’s template.

Can I print several different photos on one page from my iPhone?

Not at a size you choose from Photos alone, because iOS sizes each photo to the paper. Lay them out by hand in Apple’s free Pages app, or pick up to 30 photos in iPrint Printer and choose one size; it puts as many as fit on each sheet.