Need some help on printing a collage

A friend of mine called me and ask about what resolution to use on each picture for a collage. He wants to put about 40 or 50 pictures together and make a 20x30 inch collage and put it on canvas. Do any of you have any ideas of a program to recommend or any information on making one of these, Jeff

If your friend is using Photoshop, tell him to use full resolution, Raw files if possible. When he goes to import them to the collage, tell him to use Edit> Place rather than the drag-and-drop method. This will place the files as a smart object.

Once done, any time he resizes a particular "tile" (for lack of a better word), PS will reference the original file. That means that he can resize up and down as much as he wants without losing data (so long as he doesn't go larger than the original file).

This will give him maximum flexibility for moving and sizing the individual images. The collage file should be 9000x6000 for full print resolution (300dpi), but he may be able to get away with less. Still I wouldn't go much less then 180 dpi, which would make it 5400x3600 pixels. If he can get by with full res, he can always downsize later if he needs to.

The downside is that a 9000x6000 file with 40 to 50 smart objects is gonna eat up a LOT of RAM. He may be forced to use a smaller file size, and work the collage in sections to avoid memory errors.

- Joe U.

Thanks very much Joe for giving me this information, I sent a link to my friend and he was very complimentary on your reply and will go by your advice. Thanks for taking the time to respond. I should have written you a thank you earlier but didn't, I apologize, and thanks again, Jeff

What software do you use to create a collage? Have you ever heard about Canva? I came across this information https://canva.pissedconsumer.com/customer-service.html about this service, but I still can't decide whether it is worth paying for or not.

We should have written you remove background from image for free a thank you earlier but didn't, I apologize