Creating photo collages is not something I’m normally in to but I recently encountered a situation where it was the most convenient method for sharing a special occasion with friends and family. Seeing how this was most likely not going to be regular occurrence I didn’t want to install any additional software so I set out to find a suitable online solution.
Once again I learned that ‘free’ does not necessarily mean free. In an obvious tactic to up-sell, all of the online collage creators I encountered are available in two flavors, free and premium, with the so-called “free” services crippled to varying degrees, particularly in terms of numbers and variety of available templates – many being so limited as to be practically useless.
The whole thing was turning into an exercise in frustration, but then I happened across the oddly named PicMonkey site and a ray of sunshine glimmered through the doom and gloom. PicMonkey does offer a premium service (it rather pompously calls “Royale”) but the free service is more than adequate for the the casual collage maker and certainly by far the best I came across.
All of the layouts shown in the adjacent screenshot, down to and including “FB Cover” are available for free. You’ll notice the crown icon associated with the bottom three layouts signifying that they are available for Royale customers only.
Clicking on each layout type then reveals four further options:
Clicking an option then opens that particular layout in an adjacent design window at the default size of 2000 x 2000:
From there you can drag the vertical and horizontal lines to create any configuration you want, drag the perimeters to resize the overall dimensions, or rotate the entire design area to meet your preference – the whole thing is extremely flexible/versatile.
Going back to the sidebar again; clicking on the icon at the bottom opens up a menu where you can adjust spacing, round off corners, and select a background color (or transparent):
Once you’ve completed your masterpiece, it’s a simple matter of clicking the Save button and then selecting your preferred destination – to your local computer, OneDrive, or Dropbox
Here’s a basic example I put together quickly (in a much reduced size):
If you are looking to create a photo collage online for free at some time, I hope this article saves you some leg work. I can highly recommend PicMonkey, it includes a number of excellent features and options in its free version, certainly much more than most others. Plus, it’s intuitive and easy to use, with quality results.
- Get started with PicMonkey free collage maker here: http://www.picmonkey.com/collage
I really like PicMonkey, especially for the selection of layouts it provides. It’s a cool app to use online.
I also use PhotoVideoCollage as a mobile collage maker. It’s a lesser known app, but great for making collages from photos and videos. It’s free, so who’s interested can check it out on photovideocollage.com/videocollage.html.