Making a collage with Photoshop

[the.S2]

hello and thanks for any help you can give me. appreciate it! im such a newbie when it comes to trying to realise what I want to do that I might not even the right questions but here goes. sorry if it bores you coz it's so basic!

so i want to make a collage of images. I want to assemble them in a specific collage using software, then save it all on a file, and then print the file, at a printer shop most likely, onto one sheet of paper. i would then stick this on my wall for decoration. the images would be of paintings in fact, by the way. I would like the final print-out to be pretty big, like a metre square.

this sounds straightforward but maybe it isn't so straightforward. is it as easy as it sounds? can I do this with photoshop? would there be likely problems ahead that i would get in the weeds quickly? even if you say 'youve come to the wrong place, go here instead' i would appreciate that

thanks1

 

[PRESTON]

See if this is good for you

tutorial

 

[IamSam]

To answer your questions, no it will not be easy and of course you can use Photoshop. As with any program, there will be a learning curve full of weeds.

Look here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=photoshop+collage+tutorial

 

[the.S2]

that's really cool, thanks for the links. i'll check them out.

 

[the.S2]

by the way, is there anything I might need to know specifically about using images of paintings found online that makes it a different prospect to using photographs? maybe resizing them is more difficult coz of the richness of the image compared? thanks.

also: is the photoshop cloudplan called photography ok for this you think?

 

[IamSam]

If you are using them to make money, I personally would warn you against using images obtained from the internet, unless they are stock images that you have paid for and are licensed to use. You would need permission to use each image.

 

[IamSam]

maybe resizing them is more difficult coz of the richness of the image compared?

This should not be an issue. I would suggest converting to a smart object before resizing.

also: is the photoshop cloudplan called photography ok for this you think?

Yes.

 

[IamSam]

There may also be easier software to create collages.

apps or programs used for creating collages - Google Search

 

[the.S2]

I wouldn't make money. it's a prezzy for my gf

I was wondering: would using the online images of paintings be the same as using photos? I was thinking that maybe somehow a painting might be 'richer' somehow making resizing more problematic.

edit: you answered that already, thanks so much. what is a smart object? sorry, i'll google it. thanks for the other collage making ideas. great!

 

[IamSam]

online images of paintings be the same as using photos?

Any and all online images of paintings are photos. I'm not sure I understand the question.

 

[IamSam]

Unless you're referring to screenshotting, there would be varying degrees of quality differences with photos, but they all would be photos none the less.

 

[the.S2]

its funny, I knew I would start making questions that don't make sense pretty quickly. anyway thanks for the help, a lot to get on with. cheers

 

[the.S2]

sorry for all the questions but …. !

can a chose a blank template for my collage?

coz im wondering if collage is the right word for what I want. it seems that in most image editing apps a collage means a grid pattern more or less, whether its a simple one or a complicated one. the thing I want to make might look at the end like a collage but I don't want to there to be a fixed template where I have to drop images. im hoping I can put images wherever I want them. even move them around anyhow if I like. whereas a grid seems to limit this ability. however complicated the grid I might not be able to put an image exactly where I want to in relation to another. I wouldn't be able to put one across grid lines, for example, im guessing.

otoh I might be wrong about this, and a grid template works fine.

thanks very much for any help, I defo do appreciate it.

 

[IamSam]

A collage can be random in both size, shape, and position of the images. There really is no set rule. You can place them anywhere you wish and move them around at anytime.

 

[the.S2]

thanks so much, I really appreciate that. this is my last question for a while coz I realise I gotta find this stuff out on my own, so Im just gonna ask this one. thanks and then i'll leave you alone

this for example is an image i might well use, or certainly something like this: painting image

im then gonna upload it onto a template that is maybe 75 cm in length and then something appropriately relational in height, ie 40 cm, ie overall a bigish template to print out and hang up

I guess my question is: when I drag it to the template the image is always very big in relation to the template so I want to resize it. ok so i do that, i resize it so that it is small enough to be the equivalent of say a postcard in relation to the 75 times 40. but … will the new image lose quality and how will I know. what technical aspect should I look for when assessing the new size, is it ppi or dpi or something else? and just as importantly plz,hat kind of size do you thik I should try to get if I want to print out something that looks pretty good.

again, thanks, and i'll defo leave it there and get cracking

 

[IamSam]

Sorry for the late reply..............I missed your post above.

You will always suffer some quality loss when reducing the size of an image that may affect the print quality. This would of course depend on the quality of the image before reduction, the actual amount of resizing, and the size of the print. Always PPI in Ps. DPI for printers.

As you suggested, testing the outcome will be the primary determiner.