14 DAY TRIAL // Image editing has reached the rank of art, and is an activity that specializes and expands rapidly. Colleges hold entire courses about photo manipulating techniques and software solutions. Individual training can be easily done with the help of the plethora of information you find on the web, from explanatory tutorials that initiate you in this field to forums where professionals exchange details.
Magic Collage cannot be classified as being part of this world, as the application targets those users that do not need a complicated program to build up new images from other pictures; to put it in fewer words, it helps you create image collages in a few easy-to-follow steps.
At $26.95, the application is no steal; however, you can give it a try before opening your wallet and shelling out for it. The only limitation imposed by the developer is that of sticking a watermark on the end result. This is more than enough to properly take the software for a spin and decide if it is worth the money or not.
During the uncomplicated installation process, you won’t have to worry about third party code being pushed into your system, since only Magic Collage components are available. At the end of this operation, a very simple interface welcomes you. The screen is so simple that you don’t need more than a glance to get the hang of it and start working on your collages. Even the online help proves to be a one-minute reading of instructions, presenting the three steps you need to follow and nothing more – with a very good reason, namely that that’s all there is to it.
So, after you add the images you want to build the big picture from, you can start tweaking the details and choose the shape and appearance of the output file. There is no support for drag and drop so you’re going to have to browse for them and add them the classic way (but there is support for multiple selections).
The brief bag of options that Magic Collage makes available includes the basic functions and choices you need to make a collage to your taste. Thus, the app comes with a set of predefined graphics and shapes that can be enriched with elements spawning from your own imagination. Among the shapes you can fill up with pictures, there is snowman, crown, bird, butterfly, cat, claw (which looks more like a paw), dog, fish, flower, heart, lamp (which is actually a light bulb), star, speech/think bubble, umbrella, etc.
The total comprises elements of the most diverse kinds but, as mentioned above, you can bring your own contribution to the bundle either by drawing the shape yourself or by importing an image of your choice. As far as drawing is concerned, you get to put your doodling talent at work because all you have to draw with is a brush with adjustable size. There is also an eraser tool to correct mistakes.
If you’re doodling skills need more polishing, importing pictures and turning them into preset shapes is the alternative. However, this also needs a bit of attention in choosing an adequate picture because the black and white effect applied is crucial to obtaining a good collage. On the downside, Magic Collage lacks the possibility of inverting colors and, at the present moment, collage images are stuck on the dark parts of the photo, which, in some cases, makes a collage to be unrecognizable.
Other possibilities than making a collage based on an image are also present in the application: you can create them from a text. The only option available for this is font selection. It does not matter if you choose single letters to pin your collage on or entire names, the application will do it for you.
General collage options are not at all numerous, but include the level of randomness of the images, spacing and number of pictures to be used. Adjusting each of these supposes dragging by a slider to the desired effect. Live preview abilities of the application come in very handy since you get to see the results the moment after you make the changes – and before saving the file.
In the second part of the program, you get to fiddle with appearance settings. No complications here, either. Picture size (the unit measurement has nothing to do with screen pixels), maximum rotation angle, picking the border color (if border effect is enabled), adjusting shadow size (if shadow effect is enabled) or canvas background color is all there is to deal with.
If all the settings are in place and you are content with the result, it is time to save the project. The file formats supported are PNG, JPG and PSD. Be careful with the size of the image, because settling for too large a value can result in errors because of insufficient memory. To give you an example, 150px in Magic Collage make for an image of 5839x7687 in size.
Magic Collage sure makes for a simple solution to create collages of various shapes and sizes. Despite the small set of options, users benefit from plenty of choices to create their pieces of art. However, there are some small aspects to take care of. All in all, the results of the application are quite cool and it does not take long to get them.
You can draw your own shapes, as well as create them by importing regular images from your computer. The app will apply black and white effect over and populate dark areas with collage images. The amount of images in the collage and their spacing can be controlled. Also, if you choose a larger picture size for the output result, you may end up with a refusal to continue the process because of insufficient memory. System resource usage goes through the roof when the output image is processed. Additionally, a different measurement for the size of the output file would really come in handy.
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