Photo montage software?

HappyNew Year to all.

I have just completed a simple but huge montage by using layers in photoshop, and it took a lot of effort and time.

Does anyone know of, and preferably have experience of a pc software package to make montages? The one I made was just random sizes positioned, sized and 'glued' together on a large canvas. It wasn't particularly sophisticated, and I dont think it will need to be (obviously blending might help but positioning and sizing are the most important things.
I have crossposted this in the pc forum as it is pc software I'm looking for.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
woz

I'm confused - are you looking for software that will allow you to do montages of multiple images on a single piece of photo paper? If so, how large a sheet are you talking about? You use the term "huge" w/o reference to any specific size.

dickg

The idea was to end with one large image for printing OR DISPLAY, which contained all the required images (30 something in this case), as a random patchwork, and in this case joined together, (but gaps would be ok too where I wanted them).
The one I produced was 7200x5400 but is that relevant?

I wanted to finish with a reasonable size, and I guess I could have made it easier by reducing the sizes of the images and the finished product, but nonetheless other than potentially reducing processing and manipulation time, it was hard work, so I'm looking for some drag and drop or similar type software to do it for me.
woz

Happy New Year to you, as well.

I'm not sure what the difference is between a collage and montage, but ArcSoft is one company that has both. You'll find them here:

http://www.arcsoft.com/products/photomontage/

http://www.arcsoft.com/products/collagecreator/

If you ask this in the retouching forum and give it a day, you'll get a lot more leads, too.

Maureen

Thanks, will do, I'm really looking for people who have experience of using the software too so that's a good suggestion.
woz

I have heard about ArcSoft but never used it. However, I do fairly simple photo collages/montages in either Word or (usually MS Home Publishing), and you can reposition, resize (at least in terms of physical size - but not KB size) and put photos behind/in front of others. It's not exactly fast, but it works. I recently did one on legal photo papaer which contained about 35 pictures and nother one on banner paper with about 70. It can be done in just about any software, including simple Word or Power Point, but it does take time, so obviously finding some software like ArcSoft would be a better choice.

I feel your pain! I searched for a year to find software that would allow me complete freedom to create and save montage templates. What I have been using for about 2 years now, and am very happy with is Fotoslate 4.1 which is published by ACDSystems. http://www.acdsystems.com

It is a remarkably simple, yet effective program, that can be downloaded from their website for about $40 US and a no cost trial version is available.

It also contains a rather simple but effective image editor which I use for last minute adjustments. The basic function is drag & drop with cropping either before of after placement. It also features nice little touches such as frames, borders (in many colors), drop shadows, corner rounding etc.

Paper size is customizeable, but I don't remember what, if any, are the maximum sizes allowed.

I would be very surprised if this program would not work for you. I have tried to duplicate its features in PSE4, and while possible, the procedure is quite cumbersome and not worth the time. I can process 20 - 30 images and arrange them on 5-6 templates in the time it would take me to do one in Photoshop.

dickg

I suggest you take a look at Fotofusion from Lumapix.

--
Jean-Pierre Randazzo

Sony-R1
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Metz MZ54 Flash

Thanks, fotofusion is very good, (but of course expensive).
If your time is worth money then it is as the Americans say, a 'no brainer'.
I hate that expression!
woz

Although it is not really designed as a full blown page layout program, Qimage is a very good photo printing program which excels at printing multiple images on a single page.

You can create custom layouts, although it is not great for pages with a lot of text in complex arrangements. It supports text but does not support drawing. You can use custom frames and borders around images. I have made many cards, single page brochures and annotated photo albums with it.

It does a great job with the images, almost the opposite of a word processsor that excells at text with some image support.

There is a free trial, and excellent support. Almost continuous enhancements, and free upgrades for life!

I have no association with DDI soft, except as a satisfied customer.

http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/

This is a related question: Is there any software that allows you to take photos and create a mosaic out of them - similar to the ones you see in books, although simpler? I have about 150 pictures of lighthouses and have sometimes wondered if I could get software to create a mosaic out of those. I know that for most of the mosaics that have been created, you need a lot of photos, so I may not have enough, but I was just wondering. A while back I did a bit of research and it looked like ArcSoft made something, but I wan't sure if that would work for me. That was also at least 5 years ago, so I don't know if it's even available or if there are better packages out there now. Ny comments? Thanks.

Having looked at fotofusion (Lumapix) I believe it will do that.
I have to echo the view of others, it seems to be very good and intuitive too.
I'm going to look at Qimage now...
woz