by Gene Kunz Making a Photo Collage - Part 2: Bringing It All Together
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In my first article, I reviewed how I went about gathering the shots for my collage of a left-handed, 1st baseman in softball. I am now ready to build the collage for the keepsake.
Let's Get Started
First, I needed to decide which of these shots would be the most flattering to the athlete in terms of portraying the proper athletic position. I also needed to provide the viewer with an insight into the player with a main picture. To achieve these ends, I chose the routine but all-important play of catching the ball because it is vital to her position. In this pose she is vertical, athletically proper, and her face was somewhat visible. In addition, the pose left interesting angles in the open areas to fill. Her position had a natural diagonal line to it which made it powerful enough to occupy one of the main locations of a collage.
When I placed the selected pose into the collage, however, I found that it was not powerful enough to be the dominate image. To compensate for this, I coupled it with her other main talent, hitting, to create a diagonal within the print forming a strong main axis from lower left to upper right. I then matched the remaining photos to the open areas and generate the text needed to remind the viewer of the person, date, place, and/or honors received.
Here are the steps needed to develop the collage pictured. First the prints need to be in digital form. This can happen by scanning the prints on a flatbed scanner, utilizing a negative scanner, or shooting digitally. I am going to describe my collage process using Adobe Photoshop, but any program designed to manipulate digital images would have similar tools, so you might need to adjust my instructions to fit your program.
