Hi all

I'm new to this site, but I really need your help.
I just got Gimp and I am trying to create a collage. I have found the picture I want as the background and also some pictures from which I have removed their background and saved as .png

Now normally I just do this in Picasa, but it appears it cannot handle .png pictures.

So is there any way I can do this in Gimp? Or would I need something else?

It is a total of 5 pictures + the picture I want for the background.

Hope you can help


//Litzy

Simply copy your PNG files to clipboard and paste. Transparencies will be left intact so long you copied the PNG file from GIMP.

I would open the image you have for the background first. Then File > Open as Layers and go to the folder where you have all of your cleaned images, select all of them and open them into your background image.

Then select each layer, click the Move tool and in the dialog below, be sure to select Move the active layer.

You can play with moving them around that way and put them where you want them.

to Gimp Chat and feel free to ask a lot of questions. We want you to have a good experience with GIMP.

Better idea O; never used that option (never had too; lol).

Both are good answers. I would have suggested O's method, as I use this method for other things.

I open my images as layers most often as well, especially in Gimp-2.7.1 with tabbed image viewing.
Works great for collages and composting images.
Love that tabbed image feature!

Outside of using collage templates which can be found all over the internet, there is a free java app called Shape Collage that "sort of" creates interesting photo collages in shapes of hearts, letters, etc... Check it out here: http://www.shapecollage.com/

Back to your comment about Picasa: I can edit png files in Picasa. Are you sure you don't have the png filetype checked in Options?

Wauw thank you guys so much for the answers.

Although I found out that for some reason I did forget to select .png as an acceptable file in Picasa (silly me, should have checked that right away), it unfortunately still shows some kind of background color!? On my desktop I can see the picture without the background, but as soon as I open it in Picasa it gets some kind of "squared" background...Hmmm.

I guess I will try the method Oregonian suggested. Hopefully I can make it work

I was going to download this, it looks cool, but on the sidebar where is encourages you to buy the pro program, it says the pro has no watermark...does this mean that the free program leaves their watermark on every collage you do?

What - picasa?

It hasn't done it on mine, so don't think so

This "squared" background just might be an indication that region of the image is transparent (GIMP uses a dark-gray/light-gray checkerboard to indicate this). It's not really possible for your monitor to display "transparency" (what's it going to do, show the wall behind your monitor? ). Of course, if your background layer is underneath the imported PNG layer then you should see the background layer (not the "squared" thingy).

And unfortunately that is what it does - showing the squared part instead of just the picture I chose as a background.

But I made it work for me in Gimp - so I am very happy

Molly, it leaves a very small watermark on the bottom of your image it creates. Fortunately, with GMIC region inpainting, I can remove those fairly easily. Resynthesizer smart remove selection (Heal selection) works well, too. So download the free version. It's a pretty cool little program.

I have the Pro version and I absolutely love it! I never tried the region inpainting until just this week. It's pretty amazing what it can do. I wouldn't have thought of it for removing watermarks.