Create A Collage With Fireworks

Chances are you've seen them online somewhere -- they covered the Web a few years ago, but when used in moderation, collage-type images, such as the one shown here, can produce great results.

Essentially, the graphic is just a series of images, overlaid with a colored texture.

These collage-type images are commonly used as backgrounds, with other elements placed on top of them.

This tutorial will show you an easy way to produce these types of graphics using Macromedia Fireworks.

However, these techniques should work just as well on other graphics programs, given their simplicity.

1. The Canvas

To start, all you'll need is a blank canvas, a few images, and about 10 spare minutes. If you're in need of some stock images, check some of the references in this thread.

Firstly, open a white canvas, and set the size to match the dimensions of the area you want your image to cover. Now, consider what colour you'd like the base colour of your finished graphic to be, and place a square of your selected colour over the canvas area.

A good rule of thumb for colour selection is that if your images are dark, choose a lighter shade, and if they're light, select a slightly darker shade. Here, I've used a dark green because my images have a lot of light areas.

2. Prep the Images

Next, import a number of pictures that will adequately cover the canvas area, resizing them if need be. Now, we need to make these images 'melt' together.

First, let's feather the edges of each image by cutting them out using the marquee tool:
...with edge set to "feather". I've used a value of 10%, but you can alter this figure to reflect the degree to which you wish your images to 'melt' together.

Now, when you cut the images with a feather edge, only feather the edges that will 'melt' with other images -- not the sides, or top and bottom of your canvas.

As demonstrated below, you'd feather only one side of the images that will appear at each end of your canvas, and you'd feather both the left and right sides of images that will appear in the middle of the canvas. But you'll never need to feather the top and bottom edges of your images.

Now copy the selected region of each image, and delete the original. Finally, paste the new feathered image back in. Repeat this process for each of your images.