Creating picture collages using Google Picasa

Posted on June 22, 2008 at 5:19 am

Google’s free Picasa picture management software has a lot of add-on functionality than just sorting pictures. One of the cool features of Picasa is that you can create collages that make your pictures look more sentimental. One effect that I like is the picture pile that works like randomly scattering your pictures in a table and taking a snap shot of them:

To create your own collage choose the pictures that you want to include in the collage by control-clicking the pictures:

Notice that the chosen pictures have a blue border that signifies that you have chosen that picture.

Next click the Create menu and choose Picture Collage…:

The Make Collage window appears with a default collage:

You can play with the background color, type of collage and specify where you want the picture collage to be saved. If you do not want the default collage click the collage to regenerate a Picture Pile. See below example of a regenerated Picture Pile:

Here is another collage done using the Picture Grid type:

Once you are satisfied with the output click create to create the picture file. Picasa create a .jpg file as output.

After creating the collage you can tweak it by adding effects to it. Click the Effects tab and choose from several preset pre generated effects:

The previews on each effect is already rendered on the left side so you can see real time the outcome if you choose a certain effect. Not bad for a free picture editing software! You can undo effects if you don’t like the outcome.

Furthermore, Picasa lets you post pictures to your blog site or you can create a new web album directly from Picasa.

Start spicing up your pictures by using Picasa’s Collage capability. With this you can create dramatic effects with a few clicks.

Ben Carigtan is a new contributor writer. A Software Engineer with more than 7 years of technical experience, he will be writing articles covering practical advices and tips for computer users.

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2 Responses to “Creating picture collages using Google Picasa”

Haris said on : June 22nd, 2008 at 6:47 pm

I always use this when I find a set of cool wallpapers, but since I can’t use them all at once, I create a collage and use that as my wallpaper

akishore said on : June 22nd, 2008 at 8:46 pm

Hey Haris, that’s pretty smart! I’m going to try that myself! I usually just keep rotating them…but a wallpaper collage sounds good, especially on a high resolution.