Combining Multiple Pictures

[hobertfaz]

Hi,

I'm a Photoshop Elements beginner. I have 6 pictures that I want to combine into just one picture (like when you "tile" multiple windows in Microsoft Windows) but don't know how to accomplish this. Can anybody help?

Thanks.

[Cmcburnett]

Hi, welcome to the forum. Here's how I make a collage. First make a new blank document, I usually make mine 8x10, then go to Window>Image>and choose Tile or Cascade. Then you can select each picture individually by selecting the Move tool and click on that image, click on image you want to copy and left click and hold on image and drag the image into the new blank document (you will see a little plus sign on the blank document just before you let up on the mouse button). Each picture will be on its own layer, you can then move and resize.

Hopefully this will help.

[annc]

I tend to open them one by one, make a selection, or CTRL-A, copy - CTRL-C, go into the one I've created with the background I want, CTRL-V, which pastes it to its own layer, then use Free Transform - CTRL-T to get it where I want, with the right size and angle. If the layer is too large to see it all in relation to the background, I use CTRL-0 to get it all on screen and adjust it. CTRL+ and CTRL- work for zooming in and out even while in Transform or Text. Sorry if this is what you already know - I'm still pretty new to it, but addicted to montages/collages. Now getting hooked on using Kev's shape templates.

[Wendy]

Hi ...

... and welcome to the forum :)

Do let us know if you manage it OK ... and maybe when you have finished you could post a copy of it so that we can see what you have done :)

Wendy

[Diana]

Hi Hobertfaz,

Here is a link to a step-by-step tutorial I wrote some time ago for another forum user that may help. It was written for version 3.0 but the same instructions should work fine for 4.0 and 5.0.

http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/forum/showthread.php?p=90225&highlight=collage#post90225

Diana

[hobertfaz]

Thank you all! I tried it and it works. The only thing I noticed is that when I try to resize the picture, it doesn't retain its size ratio so the people in the picture either becomes too fat or too slim.

[Diana]

If you're resizing with the Move tool, make sure you hold the Shift key down when dragging the corner to resize. If you're resizing with the menu item... Image > Resize > Image Size, make sure Constrain Proportion is checked. Hope this helps.

Diana

[Nuyorker]

This is my first post but this thread is what I've been hoping to do with a couple of family pictures. I followed Diane's link to get the instructions she wrote in April '06. That brought me to her Gallery. One of those pictures was "Love is Here." I liked the feathered look rather than a hard border. If not too far off this thread, how does one get a feathered look? Is that the right term? I have PSE/4 and 5.
TIA,
Bob

[Diana]

Hi Bob,

This collage...
http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/gallery/view_img.php?id=6344&PHPSESSID=b70998f9999d94b74a9cf9afba824c9a
...was created in PSE 3.

If you want to try out my method in your version 4 or download Grant's or Graffi's masks, here are the steps I used. Hope this method works for you and good luck. Feel free to ask questions about anything you don't understand.

Diana

Blending Several Images Into a Montage Using Masks


If you have Grant’s Tools Mask or Graffi’s Mask addons, substitute that mask for steps 6 through 11. If not, these instructions work with PSE 3 and probably 4, but version 5 doesn’t appear to include the same frames I used to hijack the mask from. I would recommend practicing this with 3 or 4 photos before getting into a much larger montage.

1. Open the photos you wish to combine for your montage. If you are planning on printing the montage, make sure the resolution of the images are 300, if less, use Image > Resize >Image Size and change the resolution to 300.

2. If the photos you are combining are huge, resize them to a more reasonable size to work with. You can always reduce them more later, if needed.

3. Create a new document, the dimensions you desire for your finished image. I made mine 10” x 8” – Resolution 300 – Color Mode RGB.

4. So now you have several documents open in the photo bin….the new blank document and your photos.

5. Perform the following procedures on each of the photos:

6. Under Styles and Effects Palette at the right side of your work area, from the dropdown on the left side of the palette, select Effects.

7. Then, under Effects, on the dropdown to the right of the palette, select Frames. You'll then see a list or thumbnails of frames
[Although this effect was intended to be used to create a frame, you are going to hijack it for the mask it makes]

8. Hold the Alt key down and at the same time double-click Ripple Frame (Spatter or Strokes frames would also work for this)
.

9. When this is finished, select the white mask in the layer palette by clicking on it.

10. From the menu – Edit > Fill Layer and fill with White
[this will remove the white frame from the image] You now have the photo with an attached mask that you need.

11. Follow the same procedures to create the mask on each of your photos.

12. Now click on the Tile icon in the upper right corner of the Elements screen to bring all documents on the editing screen at once.

13. Click on the first tiled photo in the workspace.

14. From the layer palette, drag the top layer image thumbnail (with the mask attached) over to your blank document in the editing screen. The mask will come with it. At this point, in your layers palette, you’ll see the layers for your blank image which will include the photo+mask you just dragged onto it.

15. Click on another photo in your work space and from the layers palette, drag the image thumbnail and mask to the blank document. Do this with all your photos with the masks attached.

16. After you’ve dragged all your photos+masks to your originally blank document, save your new document as a .PSD file [and frequently save as your work progresses].

17. You may now close the original photos you started with so you only have your originally blank document with the photos+masks you dragged onto it.

18. In the layers palette, arrange the layers of your document in the order you wish your images to overlap (by dragging the layers up or down in the layers palette). Remember you will be removing a lot of the edges when you start blending them.

19. Use the Move Tool to move the images to the approximate position where you want them in relation to each other and do any resizing needed to make them proportionate to each other. The images most likely will overlap and some of the images will cover up parts of other images. To better see where to place some of the images in relation to the image below it, you may temporarily reduce the opacity of a layer in the layers palette so you can see how the images overlay each other. Bring all layers back to full opacity before starting the blending process.

20. In the color picker at the bottom of the tool list, make sure the foreground color is set to black and the background color white.

21. Choose a soft-edged medium size brush from the default brush list.

22. Click on the white [I]mask of the top image in the layers palette to make it active.

23. Using black, with the brush, on the image in the work area, paint around the edge of a photo to remove the unwanted area which is covering up the photo beneath it.

24. You can adjust the size of the brush as needed with the bracket keys [ or ]. The larger the brush, the wider the feathering. You may also move, resize and/or change the order of your photos if you need to.

25. If you paint away too much, change the foreground color to white and paint the area back in. Always make sure the mask is selected in the layers palette and not the photo thumbnail.

26. If you accidentally have the photo thumbnail selected when you start painting (you'll see black marks on the image), click the undo arrow (or Ctrl-Z) and start again, after clicking on the mask.

27. Continue with the same process to remove and feather the edges of each photo in your image—black to remove, white to restore—until the blending looks good to you. The process will improve with practice.

28. When you get all the blending the way you like it, save the final version.