family digital collage
February 16, 2010 9:19 AM Subscribe
I wish to make a digital family collage of 60 people.
We are a family of 12 children (Oldest is 58 and youngest is 36). My mother is still active and keenly follows everyones whereabouts.
All 12 of us have at least 2 children and some of us three. Many of these children have children too. Thats a total of 59 of us.We wish to make a family collage( as a group photo is impossible) of the type shown here that can be a pdf file ( maybe)( pdf can be sent around and opened on everyones computer) that can be printed on an A4 sheet. We could maybe make it so that when you hover your cursor over a picture you can see the persons full name and birthday and clicking on the picture opens a mail to box. Maybe we can make a web based picture also that has the advantage that it can be updated easily, and the younger generation will be more in tune with that (my mother cant use a computer and must have a printed page). Is it possible with adobe acrobat? How to go about doing it? What are the online options?
Any more suggestions to improve upon what we have in mind ?
We are a family of 12 children (Oldest is 58 and youngest is 36). My mother is still active and keenly follows everyones whereabouts.
All 12 of us have at least 2 children and some of us three. Many of these children have children too. Thats a total of 59 of us.We wish to make a family collage( as a group photo is impossible) of the type shown here that can be a pdf file ( maybe)( pdf can be sent around and opened on everyones computer) that can be printed on an A4 sheet. We could maybe make it so that when you hover your cursor over a picture you can see the persons full name and birthday and clicking on the picture opens a mail to box. Maybe we can make a web based picture also that has the advantage that it can be updated easily, and the younger generation will be more in tune with that (my mother cant use a computer and must have a printed page). Is it possible with adobe acrobat? How to go about doing it? What are the online options?
Any more suggestions to improve upon what we have in mind ?
You'll need to start with at least Adobe Acrobat pro, (not the reader) And I'm going to tell you this will be a giant pain. The biggest hassle will be data management on your part. Start organized with lists of emails, photos, then crop the photos square with photoshop (or some lite photo editor).
Assuming you've got all 60 photos, start arranging them on your page. In acrobat under Tools, there's "Advanced Tools" and you'll want the Link editor. Draw a box around every photo, and insert a "open webpage" link. Insert an email link (it'll be mailto:you@domain.com not http://www.domain.com ). You could also link it to another part of the document, like subsequent pages of contact information. Do this 60 times.
As far as I know, Acrobat doesn't have handy tools, like applying consistent styles, straightening rows and columns, etc. You'll have to upgrade to indesign or illustrator for that. Save your file as a PDF, and now anyone with this file can open it, click links and compose an email to that person. (assuming they're all using email clients, not web based)
Is there any reason you need this to be 1 page? Thats your call, but you're going to have tiny photos if you do. It might help you to think of this as two separate projects, one printed, and one for the web/email.
posted by fontophilic at 10:32 AM on February 16, 2010
Assuming you've got all 60 photos, start arranging them on your page. In acrobat under Tools, there's "Advanced Tools" and you'll want the Link editor. Draw a box around every photo, and insert a "open webpage" link. Insert an email link (it'll be mailto:you@domain.com not http://www.domain.com ). You could also link it to another part of the document, like subsequent pages of contact information. Do this 60 times.
As far as I know, Acrobat doesn't have handy tools, like applying consistent styles, straightening rows and columns, etc. You'll have to upgrade to indesign or illustrator for that. Save your file as a PDF, and now anyone with this file can open it, click links and compose an email to that person. (assuming they're all using email clients, not web based)
Is there any reason you need this to be 1 page? Thats your call, but you're going to have tiny photos if you do. It might help you to think of this as two separate projects, one printed, and one for the web/email.
posted by fontophilic at 10:32 AM on February 16, 2010
You don't necessarily need to use Adobe Acrobat for the initial layout: you could arrange the images in photoshop or some DTP program (which might be easier), and export as a PDF, then open in Acrobat, and add the links.
posted by James Scott-Brown at 3:03 AM on February 17, 2010
posted by James Scott-Brown at 3:03 AM on February 17, 2010
use Picasa.
1) create an account (free).
2) create an album,
a) mark in shared requiring a login.
b) check the box - allow people you've shared with to upload pics.
3) order prints (from several companies: Snapfish, Shutterfly, Walgreens, etc.
(at least one of these has collage posters - the 24x36 makes a great collage!).
4) make the album your (and other's) screensaver.
5) use their new name tags feature to get the hover over/cursor thing.
posted by at at 1:24 AM on February 20, 2010
1) create an account (free).
2) create an album,
a) mark in shared requiring a login.
b) check the box - allow people you've shared with to upload pics.
3) order prints (from several companies: Snapfish, Shutterfly, Walgreens, etc.
(at least one of these has collage posters - the 24x36 makes a great collage!).
4) make the album your (and other's) screensaver.
5) use their new name tags feature to get the hover over/cursor thing.
posted by at at 1:24 AM on February 20, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll post a link to the finished product once its done.
posted by noirnoir at 8:55 AM on February 22, 2010
posted by noirnoir at 8:55 AM on February 22, 2010
Response by poster: Finally we decided to make the collage and the information packed pdf file separately.
The photo collage was very simple to make with Picasa. As there were 60 people we made it into 2 A4 sized pages. A Snapshot of that can be seen here. The pdf file was a a list of everyone with photos and contact details with web links etc and snapshots of it can be seen here , here, and here . The pdf file itself it 12 pages. The collages can be printed. The pdf files are for use on the computer.We are also in the process of compiling a web page with google sites which is free, has access control and can be updated easily. This is turning out very well too. Thanks for all the suggestions.
posted by noirnoir at 4:28 AM on March 23, 2010
The photo collage was very simple to make with Picasa. As there were 60 people we made it into 2 A4 sized pages. A Snapshot of that can be seen here. The pdf file was a a list of everyone with photos and contact details with web links etc and snapshots of it can be seen here , here, and here . The pdf file itself it 12 pages. The collages can be printed. The pdf files are for use on the computer.We are also in the process of compiling a web page with google sites which is free, has access control and can be updated easily. This is turning out very well too. Thanks for all the suggestions.
posted by noirnoir at 4:28 AM on March 23, 2010
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I think your best bet to start would Friend as many of your relatives on Facebook as possible and take some of their photos and go from there with a digital photoframe.
posted by banannafish at 9:54 AM on February 16, 2010