New Pics... Some Freebies

After installing the Instagram application on my Android, yeah I'm a little behind the rest of the Instagramming world, I was inspired to find an Instagram collage maker for all of my cute and perfectly square instagrams!  After searching and searching for a simple collage maker, I ended up with nothing.  That's right; nothing.  It did get me thinking though.  Thinking about how I would love to post all types of collages on my blog. 

So I decided to create my own collage in PSE.  Since I had no idea how to create a collage, I'd been playing around in PSE all day trying to figure it out.  I used to use Picnik but, as you probably know, they no longer exist.  The replacement online editing tool, PicMonkey, is still under construction and they do not have a collage maker yet.  Bummer.
 

Anyhow, I figured it out eventually and I'm pretty happy with the results!  Now that I know how to create one, I can make all kinds of different ones!  I hope to, at some point, create a page to showcase the variety of collages that I will have designed.  In the meantime, I'll leave you with some new pictures that I just took.  And, yes, you read my post title correctly.  Keep scrolling down for the freebie.

Did you think you would actually read through an entire post without a photo challenge submission?  I'm linking up the photo below to the Sweet Shot Tuesday photo challenge over at My 3 Boybarians.  I just love the way this shot was processed.

For those that are interested in some Freebies, a 5 photo collage (515px wide) that I created in PSE, click HERE and HERE to open them in Google Documents.  The first file is the simple collage, the second file is the drop shadow.  I believe this file can be opened in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.  I attached samples of what they look like below. 

SIMPLE COLLAGE

DROP SHADOW

Instructions on how to use the template:

1. Open file. It should automatically open in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.  If it doesn't for some strange reason, I'm sure you know how to open it from your software editing program.

2. You will see the collage right away.  It contains 6 boxes (5 photo boxes and 1 text box).  The background is transparent.

3. Your layer box (which is the part I circled below in my screenshot; I don't know the correct terminology so I apologize) should show a total of 12 layers. Six layers named: Shape 1 - 6, five layers named 'place picture here', and one layer named: 'place TEXT here.'

4. To insert pictures into collage boxes, be sure to make sure you have selected one of the five layers named 'place picture here', then you will go to File / Place. Feel free to resize your picture as needed.

The indented layer (like the one I circled in the screenshots below) represents the box in the Shape 1 layer. When you insert your picture, it will be placed in the upper left hand box.

5. To insert text into the text box, you will select the layer named: 'place TEXT here.' You will then select your text tool to type what you'd like.  I'm just seeing now that my text is actually larger than the box on the bottom. 

6. Lastly, you will flatten the image by going to Layer / Flatten Image. You may then save the file to your computer.

Be sure to come back tomorrow for my Instagram post.  I'll be giving away a free Instagram collage.  I guess my Wednesday will not be so wordless this week.

As a reminder, I recently added the Google Friend Connect gadget to my sidebar.

You'll just have to scroll down the page a bit to see it.

If you like what you've read, please feel free to join my site.