NZPhotographer Issue 56, June 2022

PLANNING YOUR PHOTO COLLAGE
If you’re starting from scratch with the idea of shooting
specifically for a collage, think of the layout and what
kind of images you want in it. Do you want them all
square, landscape, or portrait-oriented, or do you want
them to be a mix of orientations? This will determine how
you shoot your subject.
Most people create a collage after taking and editing
their images, which often becomes a creative exercise
in cropping and moving images to fit on a canvas in
Photoshop. My ‘Covid Collection' (seen top left) is a prime
example of that. I was asked to pull together a collage of
my images taken during lockdown, and I had to do some
creative sizing and cropping to make sure they all fit on
a canvas that could be printed. If I had planned for this, I
would have made sure I composed and shot each image
with more negative space around the subject for easier
collaging. I would have also made sure that every image
was the same orientation or, at least, that I had planned
out the orientation of each image before shooting it.
CREATING A PHOTO COLLAGE IN PHOTOSHOP
If you have never made a collage in Photoshop, you can
do it by creating a canvas and dragging and dropping
your images onto it. Select File > New or Create > New and
choose the print size. Drag and drop your images onto the
canvas using the move tool to move them around and
command or control+T to manipulate their sizes.
If you have not planned your collage before taking the
images, you may want to trim some of the background
around the subject. You can do this by selecting the
elliptical tool, dragging it over the section, and then
selecting edit and cut.
CREATING COLLAGES WITHOUT PHOTOSHOP
There are quite literally hundreds of collage apps that
are ideal if you don’t plan to print your image and just
want to display it on your social media or website.
I tried out BeFunky.com, which is a nice piece of online
software. There is no need to download it or sign up. I
uploaded my images, and it created a layout for me based
on my uploads. I could then drag and drop them in. It’s
not possible to edit your photos with this software, but you
can move your picture around within the individual frames.
Once happy, you can output the image as a jpeg onto your
computer or export it directly to Google Drive.
Another collaging software I liked using was Photocollage.net.
It has hundreds of templates, and the
software will autofill the spaces for you. You can also
move the images once inside the boxes. When you finish
the collage, it will ask you to pay for the digital version,
butI found this website very useful for giving me layout
ideas - sometimes, you need to see a series of photos
laid out a few different ways before deciding on the final
one. If you are working in Photoshop, using this website
to experiment with layouts without having to deal with
layers and moving things around in Photoshop is really
useful - It allows you to do all your visual planning before
working in Photoshop. Scrolling through all the template
layouts is also a good planning tool before you even start
shooting. Choosing a layout you like and shooting each
image according to your collage plan makes putting an
aesthetically pleasing collage together much easier.
Using BeFunky.com to create a collage online.