Creating a poster with multiple images

[imlitlman1]

I'm new to photoshop and I am trying to create a collage of 50 photos, each three inches in height, on a black background. I plan to save this to a disc and then have it printed as a 24" X 36" poster. I think that I need to begin with a new blank document using these dimensions and then indivdually add each photo to that black document, but I have no idea how to drag and drop these pictures from the file folder to the blank document. I am also unable to figureout how to make the background black. Please help!

[Wendy]

Hi there ...

... and welcome to the forum :)

Well you have the right idea about how to do it ...

There are other ways of doing this but I think that this way maybe the simplest:

Create a new file
File>New>Blank File (use your size settings, RGB and resolution 300)
When you have created the file then do Edit>Fill ... and choose black
There you have your background crreated

To add each little image ...
Open the image
then do Image>Resize>Image Size
under Document size make the height 3 inches and the resolution 300
Make sure that Scale Size, Constrain Proportions and Resample Image (Bicubic) and ticked ..
Now do Select>All
Edit Copy
Next click on your background image
and do Edit>Paste

You will need to do that for each of the images you want to add. Its not too difficult to do but it is time consuming. Its going to end up as quite a large file so unless you have quite a powerful PC it may slow it down a lot ...

If you need anymore help (or don't understand anything) then just ask and one of us will help you :)

Wendy

[ME100FINN]

How about if you try the crop to get only portion of a photo that you want? The top of the screen will give you contraints... preselected or custom and enter 300 for the dpi. Crop, then select all, copy, and move to the main file and paste into a new layer.

[NMarti]

Since this is going to be such a large file, you might also consider doing it in sections. For example - if you finished poster is 24 x 36 then do two 12 x 36 posters on black or perhaps do it in 4 pieces 6 x 36 and put them together when you are happy with each one. You can make the pieces even smaller if you find it bogging down as Wendy mentioned because it will unless you have a very powerful computer. You will have so many layers that it might be very beneficial for you to do it that way.

That's an ambitious project - good luck with it! We'd love to see the finished project.

[Daviskw]

You can also set up a grid and set “Snap to Grid” to help in alignment.

To turn on Grid press in the main menu View>Grid….. then in the same menu View>Snap to Grid.

To set your grid dimensions in the main menu press Edit>Preferences>Grid. You can set the grid lines to inches if you want then figure spacing.

Now when you insert your 3-inch pictures just drag a corner to a grid intersection and the picture will snap to it.

Butch

[Kelli]

Have you thought about having one of the professional sites do it for you? I recently had OFOTO, or the Kodak Gallery as it is now called, make the exact thing you are trying to make. They have them on their site -and for a 20 by 30 inch poster size collage it was around $30. I had one made for each of my kids using some of the best of everyone's photos taken during our recent trip to Ireland. They thought they were so great! If you have never used this site before it is free to register and they have super service. It's easy to upload your photos and then you pick the ones you want to use in your collage. You can even pick the size and color of your border too.( I chose a thin black border) Here is the website -
Kelli

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Welcome.jsp

[Wendy]

Hi Kelli ...

Thanks for the feedback ... its always good to know when someone has used a service and found it to give a good result :)

Wendy