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Software to make image collages, film strips, and other multi-image compositions

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JavaJones:
I have an infrequent but still significant need to make images like this:

Software to make image collages, film strips, and other multi-image compositions

By which I mean a single image composed of several separate ones, often in a sequence, or otherwise related, usually with borders between, sometimes with more creative blending (e.g. edges faded into each other).

I want a simple app that makes this super easy to do. The above was created with XnView, which is great as I love XnView. The problem is it's an iterative and imprecise process, this one took me 5 or 6 tries, and the control I had over the end results, while adequate, is limited. What I really want is something that can produce results like that, or like this, easily and quickly:

Software to make image collages, film strips, and other multi-image compositions

Or this:

Software to make image collages, film strips, and other multi-image compositions

Note the varying sizes and different border, etc. Caption capability per-picture as well as for the whole image would be nice but isn't a fundamental requirement.

Ideally the app would load an arbitrary number of files and then offer me an arbitrarily sized canvas on which to arrange them, with guides and snap-points to make it easy to achieve alignment or random arrangement, resizing, etc. with optional borders. Then it would generate a single image with a resolution of my choice, maximum maybe based on the native resolution of the loaded files. It should be able to deal with lots of high resolution photos at once, and ideally be able to handle RAW formats.

I've seen programs like maybe Arcsoft Photosuite or something similar that do seem to have similar capability, but they're not free, and more importantly they're usually bloated piles of crap with gimmicky features and poorly implemented core functionality. I want something that is hopefully simple, lean, efficient, and has very strong core capability to create these kind of sequence/collage images.

In the past I've used Photoshop to do this type of thing manually but it's laborious. It's even possible that Photoshop has a function in it that does this, or makes my normal process easier (basically just cut/paste and canvas enlargement, then manual border styles and stuff - pain in the butt). So if you've got suggestions for alternate workflow with the apps I already have and use, that's welcome too (Lightroom, XnView, Photoshop, Sagelight basically).

Thanks!

-  Oshyan

eleman:
Check out Foto Mosaik Edda. It may be configured to do what you want I suppose. Though captions are out of the question.

JavaJones:
Thanks for the quick suggestion. Foto Mosaik Edda is an interesting (and cool) app, but there are definitely some problems with it for my needs. The most significant is that it requires an additional input image that it will base the arrangement of your multi-images on (in order to construct a likeness of it). I did not find a way around this but since it is a fundamental part of the app's purpose I suspect it may not be optional. The other issue is related which is that photos cannot be manually arranged at all (from what I can see).

I should look up one of the Arcsoft-type apps, if nothing else then for a demo of the kind of thing I mean (but like I said not part of a bloated suite, and ideally free).

I guess Canon Photorecord is what I was thinking, but man Canon's website for it is crappy:
http://www.photorecord.com/v2/en/usingphotorecord.html#
And, mind you, it is not ideal for my needs either, being much more focused on crappy themes, borders, etc. I usually want something very simple and clean, more valuable would simply be the alignment and arrangement controls and arbitrary layout canvas.

- Oshyan

InstantFundas:
You can try Picasa. It has a collage making function. I use it often.

rgdot:
Some of the Collage software do all or some of that, Picture Collage Maker for example

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