Calm Photos

I’ve found Photoshop to be the best program when it comes to creating collages. I have several that I’ve done on display at http://www.ohiophoto.org/posters.htm.

Granted, I’m not a super-advanced PS user, however, putting a collage together is fairly simple. First create a blank page in the size that you intend for your collage to be and make sure your dpi setting is the same as the photos you will be using.

Open-up each of your images to be placed on the collage. Now simply click on the first image and drag over to your main, blank page. This action automatically creates a new layer within your main page. You can then re-size the image by choosing its’ layer, go to “edit” and choose transform or free transform. If using free transform, make sure you hold down the shift key when re-sizing so that your image does not distort. Save the re-size. Now you can move that layer/image anywhere on the page you would like. Do the same for the other images until you get them sized and placed they you want them. You can also add borders and drop shadows to each image if you are not overlapping the image/layers.

What you are basically doing is working in multiple layers. Re-size and move by choosing the layer with the image. When you’re finished, save your file as a PSD, thus keeping all the layers separate in the event you want to go back and make changes. Make a duplicate of that file (under “image”). Now with the duplicate you can flatten your layers to create one Photoshop file for printing or posting on the web as a low-res JPEG.

Hope this helps. There are probably some other tips or methods, but that’s the one that I’ve had the most success with.