Making newspaper collage

[mknabster]

My high school newspaper wants me to make a collage of some of the better Homecoming pictures I took at our game. And they don't want me to put the best ones in it so they could put them in one of the articles. When I make this collage, should I take the backgrounds off of each pictures and just layer it onto the main one, or should I just leave them as they are. And is there a way I can rotate the layers on the main one so they may have a diagonal look to them? O yea, i have Elements 3 at my disposale. Can anyone answer these questions or give me some more advice on making a collage like this? Thanks!

[Pauline]

Matt have you gone into the galleries area and looked at people's work here? It is a great source of ideas.

One idea that might work and save you a lot of hassle is to pick a plain background and then add each picture with a frame around it like an actual photograph. If you go to my gallery (link below) you will see a collage done with my kids tubing. While it was using one photo and cutting it up into squares, you could use the same idea and use many different pictures. You could crop the backgrounds out as much as possible so that only your main subjects are visible.

If you like this idea and need help, just ask. It's time consuming but fairly easy to do and since each picture is on it's own layer you can move them around and rearrange them after they are all added to the page.

[kayser]

Hi Pauline, I'm new to the forum (and a new PS4 user), and in looking through the gallery, I saw your tubing picture and really liked it. And then I saw your post about it. Can you explain more how you did it? I have 'lots of pictures to be creative with, it's hard to decide where to begin

Thanks!

Kay

[Wendy]

Hi Kay ...

... and welcome to the forum :)

Hopefully Pauline will be around soon and give you more details about how she did the collage ...

Wendy

[kayser]

thanks Wendy! You guys do some amazing stuff, and I can see how it can quickly be addictive. I can't look at pictures without thinking what it COULD be. I've been doing creative stuff with photos for a while, but I used PictureIt and the trial version of PS. Now, the options with PS4 are overwhelming! I'm sure I'll have questions for you, but I've been trying to read older posts and use some of those ideas first.

Kay

[CarolLHB]

Hi Kay,
Welcome! I know you'll grow to love it here...

Here is another idea for you, that mixes selections in montages with whole framed photos-
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1bfnQILpGFyvVSjG2qmUJHfC2E2HjU1

These are a lot of fun to do-I was even more of a beginner when I did this than I am now :lol:

Just fool around and have fun! (Oh and ask questions)

Wendy, didn't you do a mini-tut on breaking up a picture into a bunch of smaller ones? I can't find it, but I did the one with the basketball player and it was a lot of fun.

[kayser]

Carol,

That's really cool; my husband takes a lot of (minor league) baseball photos, and they would be great for something like that. I'd add that to my ever-growing list of pictures I'd like to create!

Kay

[Wendy]

So I did ... here is a link to it:

http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3878


Wendy

[Pauline]

Hi Kay. Actually that was one of Wendy's tutorials that she so nicely put up for us. It was tough to find, but here it is.

http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3878&highlight=

I am thinking it would really be nice to have a 'tutorial' sections in the forums. It's surprising how quickly things get lost!

Kay, once in a while we'll all work on a tutorial and post it for everyone to see. It's a lot of fun to see all the different results. What Wendy did looks different from mine, but it's all the same idea. How it looks depends on the initial picture you choose and sometimes we get a little extra creative and do something different.

This one is time consuming but fun to do, and I really like the end results.
Enjoy.

[CarolLHB]

Thanks Wendy,
I think we did this before I got smart enough to copy and paste these mini's into a document-it's saved now

Thanks Kay, baseball pictures would be great for this :) ...

[Wendy]

Carol ...

I'll try to sort something out for the tuts ... but it may take me a while :)


Wendy

[CarolLHB]

I really like Pauline's idea of indexing all the tuts that are put on the forums! Maybe it could be a forum topic... :roll:

[Wendy]

Carol ...

I will post a new thread ... maybe tomorrow :)


Wendy

[CarolLHB]

Thank you Wendy, i think I speak for all of us when I say we appreciate it :D :D !