Bird collage feedback ...

[pontiac1940]

Please move if in the wrong place. 

I do not make collages (sometimes with a couple of images), but was inspired by the chatter started by badwolf and followed up by Sepiana and michelb. Thanks.
 
I played with the collage feature in PSE 2018 and, as noted, found it cumbersome and, unless I was missing some key aspects, it was difficult to manage each photo individually. 

No matter, I had to give a collage a go with some bird snapshots. All of these images started out with one side being 2048 pixels as needed by Facebook. But once inserted, each was resized in the PSD/layered master file to suit my eye. Fine, but what bugs is that they are resized in different proportions and therefore the resulting white borders vary in thickness. The border thicknesses are proportionally the same for each photo. 

Questions and feedback

• Does the varying border size bug you? 
• How would you arrange and resize inserted images? 
• Would a plain background work better than the faded "tree" on blue-ish? 
• Other? 
• Other? 

No holds barred. Have at it. Any and all suggestions welcome.  

Thank you, 

Clive
PS: Gonna be bitter cold starting Sunday and (although I have a forced road trip on Wednesday) it looks like we will be housebound a lot next week. I try to go out everyday, but next week might simply be too damn cold. So I might be looking for photo projects to keep my sanity ... that fragile wafer remaining.  I could clean my office, but that's, well ... 

[whippet]

My opinion - for what it is worth.
I think you have done a great job, Clive. I like the way you have placed the pictures.
And I think the background is great.

[Lillias]

I can’t come to terms with the built in collage feature at all.
If I was to make a collage I would do my own manually and clip my images to clipping masks. That way you have more control and can have all your borders the same size which is neater in my eyes but having said that it’s perhaps not absolutely necessary. When I look at some of my old family photos the borders are not all the same. I suppose it depends on where they were printed. It all depends on what you like yourself.
The background here is fine as it’s faded and doesn’t distract from the images.

Janice is probably the one to give you advice re this Clive as I think she has much more experience than myself doing this kind of thing.

[Sepiana]

Jan 10, 2020 17:44:23 GMT pontiac1940 said:

I played with the collage feature in PSE 2018 and, as noted, found it cumbersome and, unless I was missing some key aspects, it was difficult to manage each photo individually. 

Jan 10, 2020 20:34:54 GMT Lillias said:

I can’t come to terms with the built in collage feature at all.
If I was to make a collage I would do my own manually and clip my images to clipping masks. That way you have more control . . 

At the risk of derailing this thread, . . .

I believe some clarification is needed concerning the Create>Photo Collage feature (particularly for the benefit of new users of Elements who may want to try it).

Adobe did make provisions for editing/retouching of the individual photos in Photo Collage.

- Photos are added as Smart Objects.
- No need to create Clipping Masks; they are automatically generated by Elements.
- Photos can be resized, rotated, or moved using Free Transform.
- In the Advanced Mode, you have access to the complete Tools panel and the Layer stack.
- Adjustment layers can be applied and the sliders adjusted. 
- The Graphics option allows you to change the background, frames; add graphics, etc.

[Lillias]

Jan 10, 2020 21:38:42 GMT Sepiana said:

Adobe did make provisions for editing/retouching of the individual photos in Photo Collage.

- Photos are added as Smart Objects.
- No need to create Clipping Masks; they are automatically generated by Elements.
- Photos can be resized, rotated, or moved using Free Transform.
- In the Advanced Mode, you have access to the complete Tools panel and the Layer stack.
- Adjustment layers can be applied and the sliders adjusted. 
- The Graphics option allows you to change the background, frames; add graphics, etc.

Ah I see how this works now, thanks Sepiana. For me personally though I still think doing the thing from scratch would be the way to go.

[Peterj]

Questions and feedback - this is a really nice presentation.

Does the varying border size bug you?

This provide depth and interest

How would you arrange and resize inserted images?

I'd have all the images overlap on top of the center image

Would a plain background work better than the faded "tree" on blue-ish?

The natural background visually unites the collage.

Other?

I might experiment with another color for the outside frame/border - perhaps a muted orange from the pheasant's breast

Keep up the good work - I think you have plenty of bird images with which to proceed

[kdcintx]

The different border sizes look fine to me because they are similar in size and proportioned to each individual photo.
The background is muted so it is not distracting. The tree image ties the bird photos together and adds some additional interest to the collage.
A different overlapping arrangement could be played with, but if all photos overlapped the center photo then too much of the center photo might be obscured.
Overall, it looks great to me.

[jackscrap]

Love the page Clive, and since you asked for suggestions, here are a couple of things that I would change

Many of  the birds are flying off to the left - can you flip the ones of the left and make them fly or look into the right.

The thickness of the borders are not an issue, I never like things to be all the same

I like the background and the colours and elements go well with the bird theme

I like how you have made some of the photos go behind and in front of the central photo, I get the impression of them circling the main photo.

[hmca]

Good suggestion about the direction the birds are flying, Jacki! Other than that I think it looks great!
Love the hint of trees in the background.

[pontiac1940]

Thanks to you all for your input.
Some good ideas and the flying left to right was something I should have clued in on. (That how occidentals read >>>) 
For now, I'll stick to doing this from scratch and manually adding photos as Lillias chooses. (Paste layer style was handy of course.)  Thanks for the technical stuff Sepiana.  
Peter, I tried another color (pheasant orange) for the outer border and did not like it...I did one and felt it was just too "off" and never tried another.  Possibly a darker blue?  
As noted in my edited first post and and by others, the variable thickness of white inset borders is a must. If they were all the same thickness, then the white would be too fat on the smaller images or too thin in the larger images. I played with that. The variable borders are always the same ratio to the image dimensions.  

Think I like the background hues and values on the first image.  Might play more next week. Gosh, you could play with this for hours and try a lot of variables.   

Might try adding some text. 

Thanks to all. 

Bird Collage 2.0 
  

[jackscrap]

It's all about playing Clive, and I think I like this version too.

[Sydney]

I really like the second version Clive - top job!

[Lillias]

pontiac1940 While doing this manually Clive you CAN still use ‘Paste layer style’. Put a layer style on the item and then right click on its layer in the layers panel and from the drop down list choose ‘copy layer style’ then click on the layer of the next item to which you wish to attribute the same layer style and right click on it and choose ‘paste layer style’ and that’s it...done.

I like your second collage with the changes of direction for the birds. That was a good suggestion by Jackie and something I should have picked up on myself as there is a ‘rule’ in the scrapbooking world about how things should face on your page. Rules can of course be broken...lol...

[Sepiana]

pontiac1940 ,

Here is another way to duplicate a layer style from one layer to another. (The beauty of Elements -- more than one way to achieve something.)

In the Layers panel hold down the Alt key (Option key on a Mac), click on the little fx icon for the layer style you want to copy, and then drag this icon onto the layer you want to apply the layer style to. Make sure you hold this key down. If you don't hold it down, the layer style won't be copied/pasted; it will be moved from one layer to the other.

[hmca]

Looks great, Clive!