Collage Help!

[linkin24]

Hi, I'm in the middle of trying to make a collage for my girlfriend for Christmas. ?I have Adobe Photoshop CS and Adobe photoshop elements 4.0. ?I have 10-25 pictures of me and my girlfriend that I have edited in photoshop CS and I just need something to like lay them out the way I want them because I'm going to print a poster size (approx 28 by 32 inches) with foam board and photo paper. ?Even better yet, I wanted to do something really sweet, like a mosaic or whatever with all of the pictures, but when you look at the pictures, something pops out, like "Together Forever" ?Or a Heart in the background that makes up the pictures, Ect. ?It's hard to explain myself but I just cant seem to find the right software. ?I thought photoshop did everything but I just dont see where to start in here. ?Time is counting down, any suggestions? ?Thanks.

 

[ronmatt]

Illustrator and / or In Design will do the trick for a slicker job. If you don't have either than I'll assume your working on a PC with windows and probably have Microsoft Office which has (eaych) Publisher.
However, what's preventing you from accomplishing this endeavor with PS? Is there something you're not understanding about it? If so, ask away. Photoshop can do virtually anything, but it won't do it on it's own. It still takes a "person" to tell it what to do (Thank God) It is merely a vast collection of really great tools. Keyword here is 'tools'.

 

[Sark]

Sounds like a Clipping Group may work for you.

If you group all your images together by placing the cursor between each layer in the layer palette and Alt clicking, you can then add a new layer underneath all your existing grouped layers. Group this new layer to the layer at the bottom of your grouped stack and your images will all disappear.
Now, when you paint on the new transparent layer at the bottom of the stack the image, or images directly above this will appear. You can use type on this layer, or shapes (hearts etc) to show parts of the image/s directly above. Check out Clipping groups in the PS Help files for more info.

Sark

 

[AngelWhip]

here are some tuts for grouping your photos together.

http://photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/collage/collage.htm
http://graphic-design.com/Photoshop/montage/index.html
http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/332336.html

here is a tut for making photos within type. maybe you can use a shape instead of type.
http://www.planetphotoshop.com/tutorials/lesa1.html