Photo Collages and Mosaics

One photo is fun and two photos are more fun so a photo collage is a ton of fun. Services like Design A Mosaic, College.com, Pixisnap, Picartia, Picture2Life and PhotoVisi can help you to easily make great free collages. On your computer and on your iPhone - there are a growing number of collage makers. Turn you collages into posters; post them on your own website or your Facebook or MySpace pages; print them out - there are a ton of ways to have fun with photo collages. They are especially awesome gifts if you make a collage of a party or a trip and share it with all the other folks who were there with you.

I thought I had tried out all the photo collage tools out there, but a reader left me a comment about collage.com and I was amazed! This website lets you upload pictures, make them into a shape collage, and order high-quality prints. You can share Collage.com collages online for free on Facebook or via a direct link. Each collage can include hundreds of pictures arranged however you like.

I love the variety of shapes - wedding, wedding kiss, US map, paw, wedding cake, mountain, tree and even a teddy bear! Other services have some interesting shapes but the technology that differentiates Collage.com from other software is its patent-pending auto-placement engine. Collage.com will automatically arrange photos to cover any shape without gaps or overlapping - something you can't get anywhere else!

But that isn't all. Collage.com also lets you place photos anywhere you want. It will automatically adjust surrounding photos to eliminate gaps and overlapping, leaving a picture-perfect shape collage!

PrintMosaic.com focuses on using your photos from Facebook, Instagram or Dropbox. In the above example 481 photos were used to create this mosaic and in the inset you can see several individual photos. You can view the mosaic online and even print it WORLDWIDE via the Peecho printing option. I like this application for ease of use and I used it for those photos I had already stored on Dropbox. Likewise, if your photos are on Facebook, Instagram or Dropbox it could be a great service for you!

Like most collage programs, Loupe organizes a bunch of photos into a certain shape. But beyond that, Loupe gets better and better. If you are not satisfied with the automatic result you can edit the collage: delete a specific photo and move images across the shape any way you want. And Loupe tops most other programs with a wide range of shapes. There are animals, hearts, geometrical shapes, characters from multiple languages and even ASCII characters! In addition, you can arrange images into any word or phrase.

Picisto is a very easy to use online tool that allows anyone to easily create photo collages and vision boards. Choose a layout. Upload your photos, import them from Facebook, grab them from Instagram, use your video cam - it's easy to import your photos into Picisto. Add text and shapes if you want. When you are all done you can order photos, download your images and even share them with friends. It's free to signup and there is even a demo you can use before signing up.

Picture2Life has a great collage feature that gives you the option to pick your photos and then pick a country shape (more than 30 available and more are being added). This is a great way to celebrate a trip to that country or recognize your home country.

Mixel collages on your iPhone

Mixel is the EASIEST, FASTEST collage and framing app for your photos. You can choose from nine styles for your collages. You can grab your photos from Facebook, Instagram or your iPhone.

Showing the value of Mixel it has been acquired. Etsy, the online marketplace for buying and selling crafts and homemade goods, announced it has acquired the team behind Mixel, the iOS app for creating photo collages.

Mosaically's Online Photo Mosaic Maker software lets you choose the big, main picture and the small, tile pictures to make your photo mosaic collage art within minutes. Then you can share it with your friends online for free, order prints, download digital files, or sell it online or offline for profit or fundraising.

Shape Collage Online is a web application that takes photos from anywhere on the web and automatically creates a photo collage in a number of different shapes, such as a rectangle, heart, cat, or a word. These collages can then be posted on a blog, website, emailed, used as a desktop wallpaper, etc. Amazingly easy to create collages!

Besides the aesthetic nature of these collages, they can also serve as image browsing tools because the individual photos in these online collages can be clicked to take you to the high resolution photo or the webpage that was linked to by the original image. This is particularly interesting when you use images from sites like YouTube, Amazon, eBay, or news websites, because it lets you visually scan through a large number of videos, shopping items, or news articles very quickly, and then you can click on the ones that interest you.

Zumyn Mosaics are a great way of marking a special occasion like a wedding or a graduation. You can add all the photos yourself, or set one up so that family and friends can contribute theirs – the choice is yours. You can create your collage online, and if you want (optional) Zumyn to print your collage the service is available worldwide. And, in case you were wondering, zumyn is pronounced "zoom-in."

If you want to make nice photo collages check out Photovisi.com is a new online collage maker that lets you quickly create beautiful collages using photos stored on your computer or your Flickr account. It is amazingly easy to use and even allows you to decide in what resolution to save your collages.

Over 10 MILLION people LOVE PicCollage because it's fast, fun and easy. It's the best way to create pretty collages of your friends and favorite things using stickers, text, web images and freeform cut-outs! Import photos from your photo library, your Facebook albums (and your friends' albums too), or use photos from the web to create a collage.

Choose from standard text (Mom, Dad, Family, Friends, Congrats!) or just create your own text. Then upload your photos and watch them collaged into the shape of your words! A great gift!

Using Mazaika you can make professional looking mosaic pictures from almost any kind and type of image files. Mazaika is the ONLY photo mosaic application that allows manual changes to every single tile in the finished mosaic. If you don't like an image, substitute it with another matching candidate image! You could even insert specific images as a sort of personal signature, or as a hidden picture riddle (as in a "Where are they?" puzzle book). Or you might need to make sure that a particularly well-liked image is not passed over as a tile; for example that Uncle Bob appears somewhere in your final mosaic. Wherea most of the mosaic and collage tools we have reviewed are web based, Mazaika is released as shareware software you download - including a free trial version.

Want to make a flower, a heart or butterfly from your photo collection? Use templates from this group to make amazing photo collages. There are many collage services with more features, but Pho.to has some of the best shape options.

I love editing photos, but when you have the photos say from a wedding, a reunion or a graduation you might want a professional touch. Tucia can add a person into a family portrait or remove an unwanted stranger from your photo. They can digitally open up closed eyes or fix hair. They can also offer glamorize and digital cosmetic enhancement options - get a tan, clear acne or remove braces. Simple touch-ups such as digital camera mark or red eye removal and cropping are also available.

EasyMoza is a online programme with which you can easily make your own photo mosaic. If you like the result, it is possible to save your photo mosaic to your computer. After that you can print your photo mosaic anywhere you want. This way EasyMoza is a lot cheaper than other suppliers.

I will collect new sites here and then review them as time permits.

Full photo editing PLUS collage maker

Create Collages. Sometimes one picture just doesn't say it all. Think of a collage as a picture of pictures! You can create as many collages as you like with your favorite pictures, choose from over 200 different, customizable, styles and layouts!