How to make a collage in Photoshop?

[dougsturgess]

I want to create a collage of different photos from my Alaska vacation to generate a CD-Rom label.

How can I make a project/photo in Photoshop that's made of 6-10 photos from the vacation? I'm a basic Photoshop user and can't find any information in my Photoshop 7 book.

Thanks for your help!!

[john_houghton]

There's always a choice of ways to do things in Photoshop. For your project you want to look at selections and layers. In outline, what you do is first use File->New to create a blank rgb image that will become your CD label. Then open each of your 6 images in turn and make a selection with any of the selection tools and click/drag the selection from the image window into the cd label window. (Or you can select and then use cut/paste to transfer the selection). If you need to increase/decrease the size of the cd label image, use Image->Canvas Size.

If you display the layers palette with Window->Layers, you will now see the blank background layer with 6 additional layers stacked above it. You can select a layer by clicking on it in the layers palette. Then you can use the move tool to drag the selection in that layer into the required position. The selections can be resized if necessary using Edit->Transform->Scale (hold down the shift key to maintain the proportions of the selection). Note that you can make a layer visible/invisible by clicking on the eye symbol of the layer.

When you have assembled all the image fragments, you can merge all the layers into one by using Layer->Flatten Image. Once you get the general idea, you should be able to achieve the effect you want.

John

[dougsturgess]

Thanks so much for the good information. I tried it and it worked. One more question:

After I have all the different pictures together, is there a way to blend them smoothly or apply some effect to the edges? I tried the feather option, maybe I'm using it wrong, but it didn't blend them. One neat effect would be a torn paper edge but I'm not sure if PS can do that. It probably can, I just don't know how.

Again, your help is greatly appreciated!

[john_houghton]

You should be able to get a good fade by applying a suitable amount of feather to the selection before you drag it across. You can use Select->Feather. For more complicated fades, you can use a mask (a b&w image that maps the transparency of the image to any complexity that you like). That's a bit more advanced.

For torn edges, I suggest you take a look at the tutorial here: http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/torn/torn.htm

John