Thursday 11 June 2009

Weekend Creative Layouts


Remember I told you on Monday that I did the Weekend Creative? 400 photos & not one of me?! I edited them down to 40 so that I can make 4 double layouts. I know I said I wasn't going to make an entire album of a weekend........but..........I got some cute photos............ so quick & easy double layouts is kind of a compromise, right?! It's been a while since I've shown you some up to date snaps of my family so here goes! Selecting 10% of 400 photos was the most difficult part of the task. Making the collages was not that simple this time as I kept having to readjust the sizes of the photos in order to get the "more important" ones to come up as the larger sizes.

I added the text on top of the collage, in Picasa. It gives you the choice of any of the fonts you have within your pc.

At first I added text to all the photos, but this confused the collage-maker no end & the text kept jumping to different positions or disappearing altogether.

This got tiresome as you can imagine, & there seemed like no solution, so I got rid of the text altogether.

Then I saw that it was possible to add text to the actual collage once it was made. THIS is the way to go! Don't forget - it'll save you hours of frustration.

Once I was down to my 40 photos I selected & dragged them into the correct order, according to the collages they were grouped in. I played around with quantities but anything over 5 photos per collage compromised the sizing too much for my liking.

As for the wording, use whatever words you like, that are, of course, appropriate to the subject. Alliteration works well (same sound at the beginning of each word) so I ended up with a lot of it.

Ever thought of photographing the monitor (PC screen) & the TV? Why not??? I snap away at it every so often on my trips past it & collaging your images will give you an overview of what you/your family are currently enjoying.

Photos don't always have to include a person/creature. I read somewhere years ago that a photo should always have a subject in the foreground. Maybe that was then, but this is now (I hear a Human League song coming on...) & I disagree, especially as these days you can add text. These happy snaps could easily have been edited out of the mix but, you know what? They actually epitomise the season right now, & I'm glad I kept them in. Why not play around in your photo-editing program & see what you come up with? It's too cold to scrap & this is as digi as it gets for me right now!

Unfortunately I never seem to be able to afford to buy Photoshop so Picasa is as good as it gets for me right now. You can download it for FREE & teach yourself. It is pretty straightforward - the more time you spend in it the more you learn. If I can do it so can you!



7 comments:

Lynette Jacobs said...

I love your photo collages...must try Picasa! You are giving us the quick "how to" so it should be easier for us:)

topkatnz said...

Don't worry about photoshop - I have several editions ... but, find that Picasa is so much more user friendly. Photoshop does have better editing facilities and special effects. I love the photos of the weather etc ... very interesting ...

Jacqui said...

well done for cutting down from 400 to 40 - you know that would be impossible for me. I'm still at the stage where I try desperatly to use every pic if at all possible.

Michelle Ramsay said...

Lovely pictures. I have to cut down on 3500 pictures Dereck and I took whilst overseas recently!!!

Andrea said...

If you have a look under your collage you can shuffel the photos until you get the most important ones in the right place and the right size and that saves lots of time resizing photos :-)

Looks like you had a great weekend judging by the photos.

xxx
A

Ella Swan said...

Andrea for some reason my "shuffle" text under collages is always greyed out so that I can't access it. I will have to go into Picasa Help to see if I can undo that setting somehow! Thanks for the tip though - at least I know it is a possiblility now ;-D Editing is difficult but neccessary for practical reasons or we'd need another life to scrapbook in exclusively ;-D Michelle I suggest Picasa Collages as the way to go for your overseas album, with so many images, as you'll still have hundreds after editing. Heidi I still want Photoshop! I feel left behind without it - I am going to try to get it at the end of this month, finances being willing ;-D One thing I don't like about Picasa is the sizing options. From wallet size next up is postcard & I want something in between.

Desire Fourie said...

Love all your Picasso collages. For me photos which have the most impact are well composed scenery photos. Hugs from Desire