Photo collages make a great personalized photo gift for anniversaries and birthdays. They are the perfect way to narrate an entire event from one place in a single glance. And the best part is that you don't need any expensive photo collage software to make good looking collages.
All you need is Picasa, a free photo software from Google that has an inbuilt Picture Collage maker to convert your digital photos into impressive collages quickly without any effort. [If you like to see an example, the photo collages above were also created using Picasa Collage Maker]
To create a photo collage, select the images that you would like to see in the final picture [You can select non-consecutive images in Picasa by pressing the Ctrl key while choosing pictures]
Once you have shortlisted the pictures, they would appear in your photo tray near the status bar of Picasa. Now click Create -> Make Picture Collage or click the Collage button located near the photo tray.
Now this sounds simple but there are two secret tricks about the Picasa Photo Collage Maker:
Trick 1: If you are not satisfied with the order of the pictures in the photo collage, click the preview windows and Picasa would shuffle the pictures for you.
Trick 2: If you are not happy with the layout of the photo collage, press shift and click the preview windows. Picasa would create a new photo collage layout for you. You can keep clicking the preview window the collage maker until you get that layout you were looking for.
Other than the default picture pile style, you can also use Picasa to create a photo strip or a rectangular frame with all your pictures arranged inside the squares.
Find this article at: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/09/photo-collage-maker-software-free.html
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
amit hi
trust you to dig out these amazing nuggets !!
just a dumb but obvious question -
is the collage saved as a jpeg image ? and if so in what size can i save it ?
if i want to print it out then what ? and what print sizes can i get ? or does that depend on my paper size and image quality ??
:))
Written on 5/9/06 10:48 AM
Yes, the collage is saved a jpg file in the folder that you specify. I guess the size would be dependent on the size of the source photos though you might want to check it for yourself.
Printing the collage image is akin to printing another jpg image. Nothing different.
Written on 5/9/06 10:52 AM
Hi
I'm trying to resize a collage I made in Picasa in Photoshop. I need for it to fit within a 8.5x11" space to print on Snapfish. As it's a square, I naturally resized it to 8.5x8.5". However, when I upload the photo to Snapfish, it's as if the photo hasn't changed and the same parts of the photo are outside the print area. I'm not clear why this is happening. Whether it's because I'm not resizing correctly or what? I would appreciate any help or advice.
Thanks.
Written on 31/1/07 9:10 AM
Thanks for the great trick tips! Almost where I want to be, but notice that even when I get the layout I want it's not the same when I save it. In the previw it's find, but in the final save it's cut off, typically the top and bottom. Any suggestiosn? Hey thanks!
Written on 7/2/07 9:29 AM