Free collage making software that’s more flexible than Picasa

by Jen

779191_dear_memories_11 A lot of the big online photo storing setups like Picasa have an option for turning your photos into a collage. One of our readers, Vincent, wasn’t satisfied with the quality of Picasa’s collages, so he made his own program called Shape Collage. Then he decided, why not give it away to the world at large? In his own words:

I like to make collages to summarize albums of photos that I have so I can post it on my blog, use as my desktop wallpaper, use for scrap booking projects, etc. I was never satisfied with the collages created using Picasa because the photos are just randomly placed in the collage and the photos do not optimally cover the area of the collage and many of the photos are covered up by other photos. I used to use Photoshop to manually create the collages, but this would take forever. So, I created a program that automatically creates photo collages and attempts to optimally place the photos in the collage. I then realized that my program was not restricted to merely creating rectangular collages like every other collage making software or website. I have created collages where the photos are placed so that they look like a heart, flower, cat, snowman, text, or different logos.

My program is called Shape Collage and I want others to be able to easily create their own collages. You can save the collages in JPEG, PNG, or Photoshop
PSD format so you can edit the collage yourself. It’s fast and free with no viruses, ads, etc. and available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

I downloaded and tested it in Windows. It sets up very quickly and is ridiculously easy to use. You just drag the photos into a box, then press a button or two, and it’s done. Nice work, Vincent!

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Posted in Crafts, Do It Yourself on March 5, 2009
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