Creating a montage...

[embdude]

Can someone point me at a tutorial for elements to easily make a montage?

I often have a series of pictures that I would like to thumbnail and sequence within the same jpeg file. (see example below)

I made my first one today and boy was it time consumeing and convoluted! I must be missing an easier way. Basically I couldnt figure an easy way to get the multiple images aligned properly...

(I will post it below, but describe here/above pic)

First I made my thumbnail sequence-
1. I resized the canvas of the first thumb (aligning it left)to make room for two more equal sized thumbnails.
2. I made 2 blank layers for pasting the other thumbnails
3. I resized the canvas of the second thumb (aligning center) and then cutting and pasting into the second layer. I then selected and deleted the space on either side of the image so the other layers woud show through.
4. I resized the canvas of the third thumb (aligning right) and then cutting and pasting into the third layer. I then selected and deleted the space on the left side of the image so the other layers woud show through. (good thing I did not have 4 thumbs, because with my method I am out of places to align it!!!
Finally I resized the canvas of my main photo (Aligning top) to incorporate the height of my thumbnails, and made a blank second layer. I resized the height of my thumbs canvas (aligning bottom) cut and pasted into the second layer of the main photo, selected and deleted the upper portion so the background would show through!

What a pain!!!!!!!:rolleyes:

I am happy with my result but am not to excited about going through this again.

Please Help Me!:lol:

[tim]

Not free but meant to be good. Watch the video.

http://www.lumapix.com/pages/products/ProductsOverview.shtml

[prime80]

That seems like an awful lot of extra work to do what you did...It seems to me you just wanted to take 4 pictures, keep one large and convert 3 to thumbnails and add them to the bottom. Unless there's something special I'm missing here, here's how I would have done it...
Let's just assume for ease that the main picture is 600x400 pixels (WxH), and your thumbnails are going to be 200x150 pixels.
I would resize the main pic to 600x400. Then, I'd resize the canvas to 600x550 aligned to top. Resize the 3 thumbs to 200x150. With all 4 images open in PS, use the move tool to drag the thumbs into position on the main canvas...
Flatten image and done!

[symes]

I will come back to this one...I have put together a lot of these for friends and there are so many ways to do this and really make it look classy...I'll do this with a quick tutorial in about 5 hours...

Cheers,

[symes]

okay so I promised I would be back...below are some collages/montages that I have put together...

Most of them are done with borders and what not because it just makes the little pictures and all the other pictures look that much more professional.

To create the smaller pics all I did was use the crop tool to get the correct size.

there is almost always room in the photo to put the others - in your photo you could do it at the bottom or the top where there is some dead space...

To create the nice border:
1. Duplicate layer
2. Erase the background layer and select the colour you want the border to be and paint the whole background that colour
3. go back to the main layer and select the size of your border with the rectangular marquee tool and
4. Hit the add layer mask button
5. After that go to filter and gaussian blur and adjust to what you want.

to put them together just drag one layer on top of the other...

Make sure your DPI is the same on all the crops so that you are playing the same game...

here are a couple of examples below...at first it feels like it is taking ages to do it but you get quicker realy fast...

[BigRed450]

There are just so many possibilities and styles. Here is a different style..

http://jtphoto.ca/Proofs5/main_images/rob_collage2.jpg

More different styles here http://jtphoto.ca/custom.htm

PS nice job symes

[embdude]

That seems like an awful lot of extra work to do what you did...

You can say that again!


I would resize the main pic to 600x400. Then, I'd resize the canvas to 600x550 aligned to top. Resize the 3 thumbs to 200x150. With all 4 images open in PS, use the move tool to drag the thumbs into position on the main canvas...
Flatten image and done!

Ok, cool. I didn't know how to use the move tool, or even that it existed:rolleyes:. I can see how that makes it much easier. Also I didn't know that you could just drag from one open image to annother.....

Thanks!

[pdrow]

Can you record actions in elements? If so, you can create actions for the borders. It really helps if you are doing more than one.
pam

[prime80]

Ok, cool. I didn't know how to use the move tool, or even that it existed:rolleyes:. I can see how that makes it much easier. Also I didn't know that you could just drag from one open image to annother.....

Thanks!

Glad I could help.


Symes & BigRed...Excellent examples!