Then today is your lucky day. Here we will tell you how to make one of these constructed images. It can be really easy and fun, so enjoy!
Note: This procedure is done with Adobe Photoshop 4. Other programs will have similar commands, but they may not be exactly the same.
What is your objective? What is the theme of your image?
We wanted a picture for the cover of a travel brochure containing famous American sites, so we could advertise these places.
We needed to find pictures to include in the collage. We found these pictures on the Internet at a site which permits their use in web pages:
Note: These pictures have been reduced in size for ease of viewing.
(All photos available: http://www.arttoday.com)
Page layout is sometimes one of the hardest steps of the process. It takes time but is worth the effort. Think about it carefully!
Now the fun starts! First of all, we made a new image with our software by selecting New from the File menu. We set the width to 500 pixels and the height to 306 pixels for our image.
Next, we selected a color for the first background. We chose purple. The paint bucket tool 
was used to fill the image.
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We strongly recommend you save your image about every 5 minutes because all your work can be lost if your computer goes off. Believe us, it is a painful experience! |
Next we added another background, this one being an image rather than a solid color. We opened the image of the Grand Canyon, copied it, and then pasted it as a new layer. In the layer options, under the layer menu, we chose difference as the mode. It made cool colors and textures that really grabbed our attention.
Now this part was easy. We wanted to select the White House but it was
difficult to do directly. So, instead, we selected the sky of the White House image
with the magic wand 
. Then in the select menu, we clicked on inverse. The selection became the inverse of the sky, namely the
White House portion of the picture. Next it was copied and pasted into the constructed
image and put into the right side of the picture. Under the layers window, the opacity was
set at 92%.
(TIP: For hard to select areas, it is often easier to select the reverse of what you want and then chose inverse.)
This step was really simple. After opening the Washington Monument picture, the Monument was selected with the lasso. Then it was copied and pasted it into the constructed picture as a layer. The opacity was set at 80%.
The flag was made by opening the flag image and using the magic wand to select it. Again, it was copied and placed in the constructed image.
In this step, we used this wonderful tool called the magic wand to select the Statue of Liberty. The eraser tool was useful in removing small amounts of the background left attached to the statue. Next it was copied and pasted into the left side of the constructed picture.
We are almost finished. The capitol picture was opened and the sky selected with the magic wand. Then from the Select menu, we chose inverse. Just like in Step 6, when the selected sky was inverted, only the capitol was left selected. The Capitol building area was copied and pasted it in a new layer. It was positioned into the center of the constructed picture. That's it, the image is finished with the exception of the text.
Any type of font could have been chosen but we liked the "Technical" style. We had to make three layers for the phrase "Traveling America"as illustrated below. The bottom layer is black, the next one is white, and the third one is a custom color. We created it by passing black through the filter "Emboss". This made the letters gray and gave it an extruded shape.
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If you follow our example, you can make a beautiful image easily and quickly.
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