Thursday, March 24, 2011

The lazy girl's guide to making a photo collage


If I had a frequently asked question here on Fresh Basil it would be, "How do you make those awe-inspiring photo collages?" Coming in at a close second would be, "How did you get so darn cute?" Just kidding. No one has ever asked me that. Aren't you dying to know?!

Alright then, I will settle for answering FAQ #1.

I know there are lots of fancy ways to make collages in various Adobe programs, iPhoto, and even through Pinterest and Polyvore, but I make my with some super sexy tools available on nearly every computer -- PowerPoint and Paint. Oh la la!

Here's what you do:

  1. Save all the images you want to use in your collage on your desktop. For organizational purposes, I like to name my file the source where it came from. I have a bad memory, and this helps when the time for linking eventually arises. 
  2. Open a blank slide in PowerPoint. Erase those two standard boxes where Bill Gates want you to write your gripping title and subtitle. We do not need those!
  3. Click on Insert then Picture and grab your image from the desktop. Repeat for all the images you want to include, resizing and rearranging along the way. 
  4. When you're happy with it, click on the Print Screen button to capture the image on your computer screen. This is (usually?) right next to the F12 button at the top keyboard. 
  5. Open Paint and paste your screen shot into the blank page. Crop the image to get rid of the extra stuff. Open a new Paint page and paste in your collage. Save as a jpeg. 
  6. Now insert this image into your blog just like you would a photo!
This seems a bit elementary and lame now that it's all written up, but maybe it will help someone? If you have any tips or tricks, I'd love to hear them. Happy collaging!

4 comments:

  1. Not lazy at all! I also downloaded a free, open-source program called Gimp that allows you to edit photos easily. I'm still trying to figure out the collage feature in that program, but it's certainly fun to play around with.

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  2. I've used Gimp before! So fun and easy to work with for basic edits.

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  3. i'm always impressed with photo collages...so this little tutorial will be a good way to get a start on them! thanks.

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  4. You're welcome, MBB! Hope it helps.

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