How To Create A Photo Collage

Creating a photo collage can be a unique way to display your personal style, but there’s an art to doing it right. Photo collages can make a thoughtful gift for friends, family, or that special someone. When considering how to create a photo collage, it’s easy to make the mistake of thinking you can slap together a mish-mash of different images.

But to make a beautiful, cohesive photo collage, you need to select images along a particular theme and arrange them thoughtfully to create the ultimate artwork that you or your loved ones will treasure for years to come.

Photo collages can be a wonderful display of the happy memories created between you and your favorite people in all the world. Or, use them to commemorate a special trip, a new baby or get inspired with images to motivate you.

So, how do you create a stunning photo collage print?

How to create a photo collage

Thankfully, there is an easy way to create beautiful photo collage prints. At Canvas Factory, our easy-to-use templates make it easier than ever for you to upload your images and see what your design looks like, all at the click of a button!

The best part about photo collages is how personal they are; they can be fully customized any way you like to include your unique images. So, where do you begin?

1. Select a theme

First of all, select a theme for your photo collage. If you’re creating a photo collage as a gift, try to think about what might be meaningful to that person. If you’re choosing a theme for yourself, you can be even more creative. Some ideas are:

• Themes around a favorite place, such as a holiday destination, the beach, mountains or an iconic destination like the Italian seaside
• Family photos
• Travel photos like a favorite trip
• Baby photos
• Wedding photos
• A favorite hobby or theme, such as cars
• Meaningful quotes
• A favorite sport
• An anniversary photo collage to celebrate a relationship
• A friendship collage
• Photos of pets or your favorite animals
• An inspirational collage with quotes and inspiring images

2. Select a photo collage size and shape

It can be hard to know where to start when it comes to creating your photo collage. But it’s easiest to start with the size and style. Luckily, we have a range of styles and shapes available, to suit any personality, so there are no limits to how creative you can get. Choose from templates such as:

• Standard square or rectangle shapes
• Themed collages, such as baby themes, family themes, maternity, love-themed collages, pet collages
• Silhouette image collages, such as birthday balloon-shaped collages, butterfly-shaped collages, and a range of other silhouettes
• Modish shape collages, for something a little more creative

3. Select your photo collage images

Selecting the right images for your collage is important in order to create a cohesive collage as a piece of wall art. Instead of choosing random images in different colour schemes, try to group your images together in similar or complementary colors.

When it comes to creating your photo collage, you should also try to use images that have been edited in the same way with similar color tones. For instance, highly-saturated, sharp images mixed with images in pastel colors or with a light, dreamy edit and a soft-focus probably won’t work together. Sometimes it even works best if you use all black-and-white images or images which were all taken on the same day and feature similar colors.

Your images should also tell a story, and show different aspects of your theme instead of just the one point of view. For example, if you are creating a baby-themed photo collage, choose different images of the baby. Instead of just using images of the baby’s face, use images of the baby’s hands or feet, and use a combination of close-ups and shots from further away. Or, tell a story of a baby’s growth, from newborn to crawling shots, to shots of them playing as a toddler.

4. Arrange your images

So, you’ve decided on a theme and you’ve got your images ready. But now you need to decide how to create a consistent and cohesive collage. The best part about a Canvas Factory collage is that you can drag-and-drop your images into our template and instantly see just how they will look next to one another in the collage.

There are a few simple rules for creating a well-balanced, cohesive collage. Some of them are:

• Balance extreme close-ups next to mid-shots or wide-angle shots to create a diverse, balanced look
• Put your strongest, most impactful image front and centre in your collage, or in the largest space available
• If you’re doing family or wedding photos, not all photos need to be of faces. Consider adding photos of objects, for instance, the wedding venue, flowers, or wedding rings. This can balance the collage out nicely
• Try to ensure your collage isn’t too busy overall; try not to use multiple images which include lots of detail, otherwise, guests will be squinting to see the fine detail. A detailed image is great for a larger single canvas print, but may not be very impactful in a collage full of different images
• If you don’t have enough images for your collage, choose a different collage instead of adding photos that aren’t meaningful to you or are not strong enough by themselves

5. Choose your background color

With our stunning, high-quality collages, you can choose a different collage color depending on what look you want to create.

Once you add your images, simply choose your colour when you go through the collage creation process on our website.

White and black are classic collage looks, but for something different you could try red, blue or any color you like!

6. Hang your photo collage print

If you’ve given your collage as a gift, your job is done! But if you’ve bought it for yourself, you’ll need to decide where and how to hang it.

When styling your photo collage, choose a plain wall with plenty of space to hang your photo collage, especially if it’s a large one. As your collage is likely to have plenty of detail, you also might want to hang it in an area where it is easily visible close-up, like a corridor, entranceway, living room wall or bedroom.

If you hang your collage up high, or in a large void space, it may be difficult to see any detail in your carefully-curated photo collage.

Now you know how to create a photo collage, it’s important that you have a high-quality canvas print to better display your stunning photos. The photo collages at Canvas Factory are created using a high-quality, wrapped canvas print, and they come ready to hang on your wall. That means you can enjoy your stunning photo collage even sooner!