To Make Collages Using PICASA
You need Picasa which is availabe free from google.....Just google Picasa and then you can download it free....It's a great way to bring up all of your pics in your computer at the same time and you don't have to guess where they are... It is an easy way to locate a picture that you don't remember where it is...They also have a great way of brightening dark pictures...What I have presented here, seems complicated but it is only because I wanted to make it clear....What I suggest you might want to do is bring it up and fumble your way thru and refer to my guidelines when you get stuck.... That's the way I learned it (except I didn't have any guidlines).....It is really a fun program to play with.....
To Create Collages....Bring up Picasa, all of your pics will come up, scroll down or click on the folder on the left for the one you are looking for.... If you scrolled down, now click on the folder you want on the listing on the left, ... At the toolbar at the top, click on Create then picture collage...You can now drag different pics around into different positions....You can also delete any pics you want by clicking on it and then REMOVE at the top...You can make a pic larger or smaller by clicking on the picture and then scrolling up or down with the scroller on your mouse... At this point you can go ahead and click on create collage and you have done it...Very simple....Now, listed below are other "goodies" that you may use if you want to enhance your collage by putting on borders, a colored background and text....***************************************************************************************************************************************To place a pic on top of the pile that is buried underneath....Click on the pic....Click on REMOVE at the top....It will go to the screen on the left...Drag the picture back to the collage and it will now be on top...You can use the scroll roller on the mouse to make it larger or smaller...When you have it the way you want, on the left side, you can click on DESKTOP BACKGROUND orCREATE COLLAGE...I don't recommend using it as a desktop background because it makes your desktop so cluttered you can't find your icons.....You can try it but if you don't like it you will then have to replace it..So click on CREATE COLLAGE, it will automatically save it into a COLLAGE folder anyway, that you can access at anytime in Picasa but you can also save it somewhere else as well.... I never save anything at this stage but rather use EXPORT, as explained below...You can now print it out or e-mail it...Now, the problem is, the pic you have saved is 5120x3840 which is way too big to e-mail....If you look at the bottom of the collage, you will find a toolbar, The three that you may be interested in are, PRINT, E-MAIL & EXPORT...PRINT is obvious....Click on E-MAIL and it will bring up your e-mail send page and all you have to do is put in the address/es and it will send it out as an attachment, the correct size for e-mail....EXPORT will allow you to change the size to whatever you want.....The setting will stay at that size each time you enter export until you change it...... I set mine at 900 which will just fit nicely on a page and you may bring it up at any time to print or e-mail.....I save mine into a folder I call "MY COLLAGES"...OPTIONS.....There are other things you can do to tweak the collage before you click on Create Collage like adding borders, text and a background color....To put a white border on the pics, you need to click on SELECT ALL on the top right side... You then click on the center icon where it says PICTURE BORDERS...You can select a color for the background by clicking on the white square where the EYEDROPPER is...By moving the eyedropper over the colors, you will see the background change, click on the one you want..... All future collages will have this background color until you change it...If you have it the way you like it, you may now click on create collage, this will bring up some more icons but the main one you may/may not be interested in is the TEXT, if you want to add a name, date or whatever.....You can add text but you will just have to play with that to learn how.... You can change the font size and text color..... If I am making a collage that I am planning on adding text, while moving the pics around I leave a blank space to put the text into.....If you decide you want to make changes at any time, click on EDIT COLLAGE at the top and it will take you back to where you may adjust the pics and make changes,,,Have Fun...