Making customised photo collages in Lightroom is incredibly straightforward, once you know where to start.
1. Navigate to the Print panel
2. Set your collage size
Under the ‘Page Setup…’ menu (bottom left), click on ‘Manage Custom Sizes…’ and then insert your required dimensions.
Click on the ‘+’ button in the Custom Sizes box, name your new collage, and set non-printable dimensions to zeros (if required, eg. for web).
NOTE: Lightroom won’t let you insert pixel dimensions, so if you are making collages for the web you need to convert pixels to mm or inches. If you have Photoshop, the easiest way to do this is to set up a new document at the correct pixel size and resolution, and then check under ‘Image > Image SIze’ to see what the relevant dimensions are.
3. Add the collage placeholders
Select ‘Layout Style > Custom Package’.
Set ‘Rulers, Grid & Guides > Grid Snap’ to Cells or Grid, and tick ‘Page Grid’ if you want to align placeholders to a grid.
Under ‘Cells’, click any ‘Add to Package’ cell to add a placeholder to the template. Then use the corner handles to adjust it to the right size, and drag to position. Alt-click placeholders to paste a copy, or use the presets under the Cells menu to add more placeholders.
4. Drag and drop photos to the collage template
Make sure the filmstrip is showing – click on the arrow at the bottom middle of the screen.
5. Save your template and add details
Click on the ‘+’ under ‘Template Browser’ to add your new template to your ‘User Templates’.
Add borders under ‘Image Settings’ (top right).
Add backgrounds under ‘Page’.
To save your finished collage, go to ‘Print Job > Print to:’ and then select ‘JPEG File’. Then click the ‘Print to File…’ button in the bottom left and save to your computer.
How to make a blog collage in Lightroom, step by step
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