Comments on: What software to create photo collage?

Question: What software to create photo collage?

gfroese — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 06:43:56 -0800

What software can you recommend for creating a large collage suitable for printing at poster size?

I want to make a collage of at least 100 pictures and create a poster size print out of it. I'm looking to print at least 18" x 24" and maybe 24" x 36" so the resolution of the final image must be quite high.

Preferably, I don't want just a grid layout (contact sheet) as that has zero artistic flare to it.

Are there any software packages (windows or linux, sadly no Mac available, free is always better too) out there that do a decent job of creating a large collage where the photos are kind of mish-mashed together and piled on top of each other? Basically anything other than just a straight grid. Picasa has a decent collage feature for a handful of pictures, but is not feasable for a large number of pictures.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 07:57:13 -0800

Photoshop can do this with one of the batch-mode coversheet things. At least, I seem to remember there being a setting for non-grid placement. Sorry, I can't verify at work.

By: skryche

skryche — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 07:59:50 -0800

Jamie Zawinski's PictureTile, perhaps?

By: gfroese

gfroese — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 08:02:54 -0800

Maybe the Gimp has this sort of functionality. I could check that out too.

I'm just not crazy about laying this out by hand, working with 100 layers doesn't sound like a ton of fun with 256MB of RAM.

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 08:04:08 -0800

Wow, PictureTile rules. And you can set a negative margin to make the photos overlap.

By: gfroese

gfroese — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 08:35:03 -0800

PictureTile definately looks like just what I need. Now only if I can get perl to install the Image::Magick module.

By: gfroese

gfroese — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:20:26 -0800

PictureTile is exactly what I was looking for in terms of output.

I was expecting something with a nice graphical front-end, but this has turned out to be even better because I can build these collages remotely over ssh wherever the pictures are.