Collage lay-out

Collaizer 3.0 - Help

Collage lay-out

This work area is the main area to make the lay-out of your photo collage. It has several work items: on the top a number of buttons are available for layer management, on the right a series of art-work pictures are shown. By clicking on a button or an artwork button, the function is activated.

On the right a series of tabs is seen. These contain the several types of artwork from which you can create the collage layout.

Figure: The 'Design' ('Photo collage lay-out') work area

The layer controls

The top row of artwork buttons, from left to right:

Fill-out of the selected layer. This will fill the artwork picture to match the current size of the collage.
Move the current layer up, where the artwork is put on top of the underlying layer. This way artwork can be put in the required sequence.
Move the current layer down.
Delete the currently selected artwork (layer)
Delete all the artwork (and start with a clean slate). Only the background will remain.

The bottom row of artwork buttons, from left to right:

Rotate the currently selected layer counter clockwise.
Rotate the currently selected layer clockwise.
Flip the currently selected layer horizontally (mirroring horizontally).
Flip the currently selected layer vertically (mirroring vertically).

The shape and type selectors:

Shape collage: the black shape is the template to arrange the collage pictures.
Artwork collage: drag and drop any picture into the work area. No collage will be made from the picture library.
Landscape or Portrait: the 'paper' orientation.

The paper size: select a paper size from the drop-down box. Typical photo sizes are possible, and paper sizes from (metric) A4 to A1. Please make sure you have A1 printing possibility before making any (very) large collage.

The collage artwork tabs

The artwork tabs. From left to right:

Background pictures. These pictures could be of any kind, and are only used to fill the background of the photo collage. Like the artwork and frames, these files are loaded at application start. The background image can be placed in the collage in three different ways (see example pictures below):
- Tiles: the background source picture is used to create tiles. This way a pattern is made using the original size and quality of the background source picture to make a seamless pattern.
- Fill: the background source picture is resized to meet the collage design dimensions. In those cases where the background picture is (much) smaller then the collage size the result is a pixelated and blurry background. For the 'Fill' option the resize is done in such a way that the aspect ratio of the background source picturen is kept intact.
- Stretch: similar as 'Fill' but now also the aspect ratio is ignored: a full resize is done.

The frame pictures. These should be .PNG files to allow for transparent parts that makes a frame. Like artwork pictures, these files are loaded at application start.
The artwork pictures. These pictures are loaded at application start as currently available in the artwork folder. See here for details how to add or change pictures to the artwork folder.
The shapes for the picture collage. The top part of the shapes are internally generated shaped from the special fonts in Windows (Webdings, Wingings). The bottom part are shapes as they were found at application start in the folder 'C:\Users\Public\Documents\APP\Collaizer\Data\Shapes'. You can add your own shapes in this folder. The next time the application starts it will add your custom shape to the overview. These shapes must be fully black and white to work properly.
The collage photos. These photos are the same as selected in the library work area. These photos can be selected to make an artwork collage (or as part of the photo collage).
The collage projects. These are pre-compiled artwork files, ready to be loaded and re-used. Just like you had when you worked on the collage lay-out.

For artwork, frames and background, new folders can be conveniently be selected and added to the corresponding folders. Press the button (at the bottom of the application), e.g. 'Add frame'. A pop-up window is shown, from which you have to select the folder containing the new artwork, frame or backgrounds. When OK-ed, that folder is added to the corresponding folder. The artwork becomes available immediately. When you have also checked the option 'Copy the file to Collaizer when adding user artwork' in the Settings work area, also the files in the selected folder will actually be copied to the Collaizer artwork folder. No files are ever deleted or moved, just added or removed from the current overview in the application!

Warning: avoid to add large folders and/or large picture sizes to the artwork. When large folders are read or when large pictures (>5 MB) are to be added, it may take an inconveniently long time to wait until the picture browser on the right is filled with previews of each artwork picture. Also scrolling up and down may take (much) longer then normally. Instead, prepare a special folder with the artwork you would like to add; copy your own files in here, and then add this using the 'Add' button.

A final tab 'Projects' is used to load existing lay-outs or save new lay-outs. Simply drag and drop an existing project in the lay-out work area and that lay-out becomes active. All layers and artwork is exactly as it was done after saving.

Saving the project you are working on
The current collage layout can conveniently be saved as a project. press the button 'Save project' when you have the project tab active. The application will require a project name. After successful saving your project will appear as a thumbnail in the overview. A project consists of two files: the .xml file with all the relevant project data, and a .psd (photoshop format) file with the current layout with all the layers that are used. These .psd files can be opened in e.g. Photoshop to see your artwork. But editing this .psd file has no effect on the project!

When right-clicking on a project thumbnail in the overview a pop-up menu will appear: delete the current project or refresh the overview (in case you have manually edited this folder via the Windows Explorer). When deleting a project the corresponding files are also deleted from the projects folder.

Photos for the Artwork collage
In case you are creating an artwork collage the shape will disappear, and you can now also drag and drop photos from the photo tab into the work area. These photos can be moved, resized and rotated, just like any other layer of artwork. Also layer swapping (up, down) is possible.

Drag and drop the artwork
All artwork can be drag-and-dropped from the active tab to the work area. When dropped, a rectangle is visible to move, resize or rotate the artwork to match with the intended position and size.

To rotate the artwork, the CTRL key must be pressed first, while moving the mouse at a corner of the artwork. A rotation arrow becomes visible and the artwork can be rotated. Releasing the CTRL key will change the mouse pointer to resize and move. The rotation effect is permament and cannot be changed back (unless rotating back). Many rotation actions on the same layer might deteriorate the quality of the layer a bit. This effect is only temporary: it will be fully restored when the collage is generated.

By default the aspect ratio is kept intact when you resize. To override the aspect ratio press and keep the SHIFT button before you select and change the size of a layer artwork. The change is permanent, and cannot be set back to the correct aspect ratio. To correct, you must first delete the layer of that part, and then drag-drop the artwork again.