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Lesson Info

Creating Photo Collages

Now let's build a couple of collages. We got just enough time by an hour, Teoh build several different collages. We're going to him in two different ways and then we're going to start sharpening. So if you're following along at home, we're now in folder number 17. That's right. We have done 17 techniques today, and so I'm gonna open up some images and show you what we're gonna create. This is what we're gonna create. First, we're gonna dio a nice idea for a wedding collage. So this is what we're going to create. And I've given you both the source images and the layered file so that you can start completely from scratch. Ola. So what we've got going on in our layers panel is the bed of roses, which is both of these are stock images. But if you're if you're a wedding photographer, you can think that Oh, well, I can take this shot, but I may not have access to a shot like that. Well, that's a great reason to use stock in conjunction with your own photography to create unique pieces of art...

. So the first thing we need to do is combine these images into the same document, so I'll go ahead and close this one. Don't say. Here we go. Now let's open our photo been and I can see all of my open images here. I'm gonna start with the background image just to keep me from having to rearrange that layers panel. And from the photo been, we're going to click and drag atop the image. And then when you release your mouse button, that image is gonna plop into that document perfectly centered. Closed the photo, Ben. Now we're gonna use thier rectangular marquee tool. Go ahead, give it a click and then trot down to the options bar and grab the elliptical marquee. So this is kind of similar to the trick we did earlier. When we did, the creative edge is using the refined edge dialogue. We drew the rectangular selection, then added a mask. This is gonna be a similar thing. So with the elliptical marquee tool active, you're gonna click and drag diagonally downward atop your image to draw your oval while you're still depressing the mouse button depressing the mouth. Can you leave your depressing the mouse pressing holder space bar and then you can move the shape around or the selection rather atop your image. If you didn't get it just in the right position, then you can release the space bar and they continue drawing. If, for whatever reason, you want that elliptical marquee to be perfectly circular press and hold the shift key. Same thing goes for the rectangular marquis. If you ever drawn a rectangular selection, you want to be perfectly square. Does hold the shift. Key down is your drawing it? So when you get it just right, release your mouse button. And then from the options bar, you could drag the feather slider to the right and then add a layer mask. However, if you do it in that way, it will be a complete guessing game. How much further to add? So the feathers. What's going to soften the edges of that selection? And then we're gonna mask it, and that's what's going to make a soft transition from one image to the other. But if you do it in this way, it is an absolute guessing game. You can't see the edges of the selection. For example, there's 100 and 20 pixel feather Yahoo looks exactly the same as a 250 pixel feather, which looks exactly the same as a zero pixel feather, so I wouldn't do that way. What I would do is click the refining dialogue refining box button to open. There were financed dialog box. So this is what we used earlier. We can use any of these preview methods to see what our image is gonna look like. But for this particular technique, let's choose on layers because that will let us preview exactly what this effect is gonna look like on top of that other layer. And let's use the feather slider here because, as you can see, when you drag it here, you get a preview and you can actually see what you're going to get before you apply it. Otherwise, you you're in a little bit of undue hell. You have to undo, undo, undo, and then redo this election, etcetera, etcetera. And that that way lies madness. So here it's just easy peasy, and you can see the results of what you're going to get so you can decide exactly how much feather you want to apply. It has taken elements a couple of seconds to catch up with the changes that I make into the slider. So if that's happening, Holmes, take a sip of whatever it is that you have near your desk and know that when you release your mouse button, that element is gonna preview that feather for you just fine right there. Click OK or actually output to from the output to menu cheese layer mask. That's it. That's not too painful, is it? Let's do it again on a different photo. Didn't you can get an idea of situations in which you might want to do this and you'll definitely start shooting for this technique in your business? So here's another idea of when you might do a technique like that. You got some kind of theme that's important to the family that you're shooting. Then you might wanna try to find a background that kind of goes along with that theme It. Let's say you're shooting some kids that are all into soccer or basketball. There's no into the different types of backgrounds that you could put behind these images and again, that's just additional items that you can sell in your photography business and or using your promotional pieces. So let's go create this one from scratch together. We'll go ahead and close that image. So now we open our photo been we can see that we've got the family and the flag. Well, if I know that I want the family to be on top in the layers stack, I'm just gonna go ahead and double click the flag thumbnail in the photo been so that it is at the forefront of my preview area and then click and drag the families from nail into that document. Now we're gonna do the exact same thing. Grabbed the marquee tool depending upon which marquee used last. That's the one that's going to be active up here. But if it's not the one you want, then you just come down here to the options bar and pick the one you want. This technique would work with the with the rectangular marquee to I don't think it's as pretty because, and what makes this so special is that is the contrast that you get between the rectangular edges of the photo and then the circular nature of the oval. That's contrast, so it works a little bit better than rectangular edges of a photo indirect, angular vignette or fade. But by all means experiment. So with the elliptical marquee active, I'll go ahead and collapse the options. Bar Seiken, drama shape. Click and drag diagonally downward. If you want to reposition the selection atop your image while you're in the act of drawing it present, hold the space bar and then move your mouse around. Let's say that looks good to me again. If you wanted constricted to be perfectly circular press and hold the shift key when you get it just right. Go ahead and release your mouse button pot back. Open the tool options. Resist the urge to use this feather slider. Proceed immediately to the refine edge button and from the view mode menu. Choose on layers or press L. That's the keyboard shortcut for that view Mood and then grab the feather slider and to get the softness that you want around those edges when you get it just right. And this is another great reason to use the refinish dialogue for this because if you didn't get that selection as big as you wanted it or if you got it too big, you can adjust that right here by just shifting the edge of the selection. See how you get all this extra flexibility in the refining dialogue. It's really fantastic. And then from the output menu, choose layer, mask and click OK and marvel at your creativity. Any questions on that particular technique for moved to another collage technique? I have one question. Lisa SANFRAN Sell Saffron Sal wanted to show again when you making your elliptical marquee. They wanted to be vertical instead of horizontal. So then it's just a matter of stretching it, sort of in that in that shape that you like without holding down the shift key. Exactly right. So to draw an elliptical selection that's more vertical in nature, you would just maybe start more towards the center of your photo, and you just want to drag it out is wide right. Perfect. Thank you. You're welcome. Another way to create a technique to create a technique to create a collage is to fade your images together. Now we did a little bit of this earlier when we used the Grady in tool inside of the layer mask. When we did that faded color to black and white effect Exact same technique, Exact same. Take me. So I'm gonna get you all excited about it by showing you some examples of what that will look like. So in this image, this is a fake ad tango Tuesday. See how all of these different images will That they're kind of faded together. I'll see him a little bit more. So we've got the dancers. You're kind of fading into the guitar. Then we've got a rose. It's kind of fading and into the guitar. If we look at our layers panel, we can see that each one of those image layers for at least two of them have a layer mask that the Grady Int tool has been used on. So that's how you get that faded. Look, you just add a layer mask to that layer, go grab the Grady int tool said it to use black and white and then just click and drag atop your image with that grading total, just like we did on the faded color effect. And we're gonna we're gonna do it together. But I want to kind of explain what you're seeing. So as you can see the nice take me? No, there's no tofu lane in Denver. Here's another example. This could be an add anything, so the image of the girl is at the above the other photo layer of the university. But if I've temporarily hide that layer mask by right clicking it or controlling it and choosing disabled layer mask, you can see that it's just two images stacked on top of each other. But as soon as we enable that layer mask and use a Grady Int tool inside of the layer mask set to use a black toe white Grady in because in the realm of the layer math black conceals, White reveals, So that's what makes it look like these two images air fading together. Here's another example. Of course, this one would be my favorite. If this were a picture of me, my I would be about that big if I had been racing that day. Scared the tar out of me. And here's another great example. Yes, babies. Yeah, baby. All right, so let's create some of these together. But at least having these files around gives you an idea when you might use this technique and lots of practice files to use. So let's start with the babies, the baby and the mom. So using our photo been, we can click and drag to combine these images into a single document. But I'm gonna go ahead and start out. Actually, doesn't matter which one I start out with. I'll start out with the mom, and we can click and drive the baby into that photos. And now we've got both images on separate layers in the same document. Now we have to do is add a layer mask to which layer, well, the one that you want to end up on top. You're not gonna be able to really tell in this technique which one is on top. Which one is on bottom. But let's go ahead and a layer mask by clicking the circle within the square icon at the top of the layers panel. And now, with the mask active and you know it's active because it has that little blue line around it. Let's go grab the grading and tool from the tools panel and make sure that we're using a black to white Grady in, so you need to set your color chips to the default of black and white and then make sure black is on top. Or, if you couldn't remember to do that before you activated Ingredient tool, just click the little downward pointing triangle next to the grading and preview in the options bar. And just choose that third preset in the default list, and that will always be a black twice ingredient. The only reason this preset is showing you black want grading is my color chips happen to be black and white. If there were any other color, that's what would show up here. So it's this third preset that will always be a black to white radiant. Now we will close that options bar, and you just click and drag to get the effect you want. So for this one zoom Allah bits, we can see the whole composition. I'd like to move mom over to the lift, so let's click. To make that layer active, go grab the move tool and see if elements will let us scooped her over in that auto select layers haunting us again. So let's turn that off click to activate the later we want to effect and see if elements will let us scooted over. It's not letting executed over why? Because it's got a padlock on it. It's a locked background layer, so just double click that layer to make it creditable. And then elements won't squawk it. You, when you want to move it over my baby pictures slightly too small. So I'm just gonna click to activate that layer, trot up to the image menu, choose transformed free transform in them is gonna make it a little bit larger. Reposition it, however I'd like. Now, since I've been moving layers around, my layer mask is no longer active. But to continue experimenting with the Grady and tool within that layer mask, all I have to do is click to activate the mask, switch back to the Grady in tool and continue fine tuning my collage until I get a look that pleases me. Now here's a great opportunity to create another layer, a stamped copy that contains the contents of both of these layers and apply a color tint to it so you could do that. Or you could create a Grady at map adjustment layer like we did earlier and do a color tint that way. Probably easier to see use elements preset effects for that. So let's go ahead and choose or press shift option Command E or shift all to control E on a PC to create a stamped copy. So now we've got one layer that includes everything on all those visible layers. Now we could run a filter on that layer, or we could come down here. So the effects panel click effects at the top right of that panel. Make sure to choose. Show all from the pop up menu and scroll all the way down until you get to the color tents. And if you wanted to do a C p a. Just double click this color tent button right there and that's it. So we'll do that one again on different images. We'll do our racing collage next. So how excited are we about the shop elements at this point? Very cool. So open the photo them by clicking that button at the bottom left, then drag the thumbnail into the other open document. Need to switch back to my layers panel here. Now let's add a layer mask. Now if you want to, you could do a little positioning before you add the layer mask doesn't matter. I know in advance that I need. I'm gonna need to scoot that guy over because I really just want half of his face to be visible in my collage in to scoop the motorcycle over. Let's go ahead and double click that layer to make it creditable and with it active in the move till active than Aiken, skewed it over a little bit as well. Now I can click the top most layer. Add my layer mask, trot over to the tools. Pain will activate the Grady Int tool. Make sure that either your color ships are set to the default of black and why. Or click the downward pointing triangle in the options bar next to the Grady and Preview and click the third preset in the default category, which will always be a black to white radiant. Now we can close at the Options bar mouse over to our image and begin dragging to create the effect for this particular technique. If you're using a black to white Grady, it, you're going to be dragging from left to right because why are we doing that? Well, black is the color on the left of our Grady in It's a fade from black toe white in the realm of the layer mask, black conceals and reveals. If we dragged from their right to the lift, we would be doing the opposite of what we want. But it's no big deal, because you could just keep clicking and dragging until you get the look that you want. Do be cognisant of the edges of your photo, though you can see that if I start my drag too far away from the edge of that image. If I start my drive from the left of that images edge, then I'm gonna leave a little bit of that hard edge of the image in the collage. Don't want that. So you're going to start your drag a little bit to the right of the photos edge. So just be careful that you don't leave that edge hanging around, cause then people would know that suits must be nude element. So now if we want to do a creative color effect, we could if we wanted to, we might wanted to make this whole image black and white. You could just do a great map adjustment layer are color chips or already black toe white. So from the half black, half white circle menu at the top of the layers panel, we could just choose Grady and Map. And for some reason, we've got some color going on here. So what we can do is click that little downward pointing triangle and click that third preset in the list to create our black and white image. And if we wanted some of it to be in color, but on all of it, then we would just paint with black inside of this Grady it map adjustment layers mask. Now let's turn that off. Now let's create a stamped layer again just for the sake of doing it. Shift option, Command E on a Mac or shift all Control E. On a PC and Elements is angered because I was, I had an adjustment layer active. Apparently, there we go, and now we can go into the effects panel at the bottom of your interface and then make sure that you click the effects section at the top right of that resulting panel from the pop up menu. Underneath it, make sure make sure to choose show All in Miami all means experiment with all of these different filters on your own, but for for this particular technique with at a blue tent. So you just double click the thumbnail of the preset that you want to apply. And I think that looks quite nice. Useful. E think so, Yeah. So that's how to easily fade images together. Do we have any questions from the great interwebs on that one? You know, I think the one question that we have and we've had a couple of times this week is wanting to know whether you pre visualize some of this work or whether you sketched out Or do you have a glass of wine and you this work on it? Really? Sometimes a little of both. Yeah, that would be my most honest answer. Little both. Sometimes I pre conceptualized what I want to create. Other times, I just look at my photos and hope that inspiration comes and it usually does