:o: Hi all,

Could someone help please.
I want to create a montage of old photos I have restored.
At the moment all I have tried is using the clone tool.
Is there a set way of doing montages?
Things like setting the image size and resolution, using layers etc

Any help will be most appreciated.

Regards

Jon

Do you mean collage?

Sounds like you're hitting two separate topics: retouching and layout.

If you could be a little more specific about what you're trying to accomplish, and what problems you're facing, you'll get lots of help.

I can give you some very basic help and tell you how I do montages:

I start a new document at the size and resolution I want my final montage to be. I open up each picture I want to add in turn. Using the move tool, I drop and drag each picture into the new document. I don't worry much about placement at this point. Each picture will be on it's very own layer, which is good. As for sizing the pictures, you can do that when you place them. If they are obviously too big or too small, I just use free transform (ctrl T) to resize them once they are in the new document.

I find it much easier to move the individual picutures around if I click on the Auto Select Layer box on the options bar when you have the Move tool activated. This way you don't have to select the layer that contains the picture you want to move...you just click on the picture and it automatically selects and moves just that layer.

Another great thing about having each picture on it's own layer is you can make other adjustments to them individually using adjustment layers. So you can use levels, hue/saturation, curves, etc. to each picture and not effect the entire montage.

I move my pictures around and use free transform to get them to approximately the right place and size. I then apply a layer mask to each picture individually. Then, painting on the layer mask with black, I use a large soft brush and "paint away" the parts of the picture that I want to "erase." Typically this is the edges where the photos meet. This way you can overlap the pictures yet erase away all the straight edges.

You can start with a blank background and overlap the pictures to cover it completely, or you can start with large picture as a background and let it show through in spots.

I'm not sure if this helps at all...I'm sure someone here will know exactly what you need! Good luck!

What's the difference between a Montage and a Collage?

Thanks,

Kirk

Good question. Apparently collage is used when physically assembling (as in cutting and pasting) different materials and objects, whereas a montage is a composition of pictures. From what I gather, they are often used interchangeably. The history of each art form differs, but in modern usage they can be hard to tell apart. Here are the definitions as given at dictionary.com:

Collage:

-An artistic composition of materials and objects pasted over a surface, often with unifying lines and color.
-A work, such as a literary piece, composed of both borrowed and original material.
-The art of creating such compositions.
-An assemblage of diverse elements

Montage:

-A single pictorial composition made by juxtaposing or superimposing many pictures or designs.
-The art or process of making such a composition.
-A relatively rapid succession of different shots in a movie.
-The juxtaposition of such successive shots as a cinematic technique.
-A composite of closely juxtaposed elements

Well, now I'm thoroughly confused! LOL!

Yeah, I am pretty confused too. I thought the two were completely interchangable.

Kirk

In Portuguese (yes, I speak Portuguese all day!) there are two verbs which match these words.
- montar: to mount, to build, to put together.....
- colar: to glue together.
As we are pretty close to the Latin roots here, I'd say that the modern "collage / montage" are based on these.

So montage would be putting together things which normally do go together and collage would be putting together things that don't.

OK, OK, granted that some may differ on the do's and don'ts.........

We had a short discussion on collage vs montage a couple of years back (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2530).

Most people regard the words as synonymous, but as FrannyMae and ByRo have pointed out, they are different.

Whatever its called thanks for the advice Franny Mae, I will try it out.
Also thanks to everyone who replied

Regards

Jon

I want to add a tip!

click on the linked symbol between the layer on the mask to unlink the two. Now click on either one and click Control-T, you can resize the layer or mask separately (hold down the control key while grabbing the transfowm handles to change do freeform skewing). Remember to relink afterwards. This is great for changing the cropping on a collage image without having to remake the mask .... :)

I got to help too .... thanks!!! ;)
Roger

Roger-great tip! It makes perfect sense...but I never thought about it to be honest! Thanks!

Roger, I'm forever trying to do simple things the hard way. You just made a hard job easier. Thanks bunches.

Janet

FannyMae wrote; Roger-great tip! It makes perfect sense...but I never thought about it to be honest! Thanks!

Exactly the way I felt when I stumbled upon it a couple of months ago;)

Glad I could help