Photographic Enhancement Collages

On the walls of my daughtter's home are a couple of collages of photographs of her family and friends from around the world.  The oldest is of her mother, taken when she was only 17 and the newest was taken last Christmas.  The thing about them that I have noticed is that people visiting her for the first few times immediately gravitate to them to have a look.  They attract attention and good comments. When her trailer was stolen from outside the front door of her house one night even the policeman who came to take details spent a few minutes looking at them.  

I use Picasa 3 to compile collages as it is so simple.  This is the UK site but it is available world wide and is free.

Notice how Google uses a Collage to attract attention to their Picasa site.

For the purposes of this article I have used a small selection of photos taken whilst enjoying lunch at a pub on the banks of the Thames River in Cookham Green in Berkshire.  I used my old Sony WS30 due to the weather being so bad.when I set out to meet some Australian friends touring Europe.  Over lunch it cleared up nicely.  You can use any group of Photos that you put into a separate file for this purpose and import the file into Picasa 3.  However, if you are using Vista then you can use the Pictures Folder under your User Name and the uploading is automatic,

As these photographs are obviously small I have repeated them in a gallery down the Page.

Picture Pile Collage

This is the first Collage - a scattering of photos as though you have simply taken prints and tossed them onto a table top.

Notice the photo of the vulture.  I have put this in as a control photo to that you can see movement as you shuffle your selection

This is a Mosaic Collage ~ use this if you want to fit your pictures automatically into the collage.

Note the position of the vulture

Mosaic with Automatic Fill  with the various options shown.

This collage is a screenshot and shows how the Shuffle function changes the order.  Again, notice how the vulture has moved. 

Also note the shuffle button at the bottom.

A Mosaic Collage with one centre dominant photograph.This is the final example and the one mosaic I use the most.  

Well that is it.  Why not have a look at Picasa 3 and have fun with your photographs?

I showed how to compile a Panoramic photograph using free software on Photographic Enhancement ~ Panoramas  In that Page the  pictures compiled resulted from photographs with common focus points or subjects points.  Here I show how IrfanView will compile a banner type picture using diverse photographs.

I needed a Banner Headline picture for my new Blog ~ Books by Ralpapajan.  For my personal Blog I used a Panorama of the Mopan River near San Jose Succotz in Belize. 

This one I wanted to include my logo and add something else that might add interest.

I then made a collage in Picasa 3 using photographs my daughter Nikki had taken of me and then fused the two together using Irfan.

Open IrfanView ~ Click on Images/Create Panorama Image and this screen drops down.  Click on Add Images, select the images you wish to fuse and then click on Create Image

This is the result when I did mine. I have added a Link Module so that you may look at the Panorama examples in use. I hope you enjoy your experiance using free software available online.

Reaching for the Stars ~ the Blog of Rob "Ralpapajan" Thurman

The Blog of "Books by Ralpapajan"

The download site for Picasa in the United Kingdom

The site for downloading IrfanView