14 DAY TRIAL // There used to be a time when all your family pictures had a standard cut, a standard look and a standard container, namely the family album. Things have changed a bit and image handling turned into a flexible process that allows the user easy manipulation for obtaining the most original results. Our home computer can easily become an instrument for trimming image edges, adjusting colors, removing noise, in one word enhance them to the furthest extent.
Making image collages is no longer a glue and paper activity and turned digital as well, thus eliminating all that nasty smell and the sticky fingers. Software replaced scissors in this sense and re-shaping an image is just a matter of click and drag in some cases. And one application specially designed to let you add images into a nifty looking, printable collage is Collage Maker. The name says it all and the price for the full version is $27.95. Sure you benefit from a trial period to get acquainted with the application and see what it is worth. 31 days are quite enough to figure out the ups and downs of working with Collage Maker.
All its functions and features are wrapped up in a very easy to handle interface with all options in plain view. There are various locations to access the options from, but the dockable left hand side panel and the context menu of the picture background and of the images themselves is all you need to come to a great looking result.
The application is quite flexible and, besides letting you arrange the images on a background, it also provides the means to enhance them a little bit, offering color enhancement options like adjusting the brightness and the contrast, applying a grayscale or negative effect. It's not much, but it allows you to make a few retouches.
Working with the software allows you to discover its various options little by little, however, experimenting is not one of Collage Maker's strengths as it lacks an "undo" option to revert to the anterior state. On the bright side though, the application permits building a nice looking background either by combining colors into gradients or by selecting one of the 87 textures available.
Moving your images on the "canvas" is done by simply selecting the picture and dragging it to the desired location. A layout manager can become quite useful in this sense, as it displays all the elements of the collage providing information on the name and position on the "paper" for each item. If you are looking for the dimensions of the images, close layout manager and take a peek at the bottom edge of the application window while an element is selected; you'll get the width and height in no time, as well as the amount of free memory on your computer.
Additional options made available in Collage Maker refer to the way the image itself is treated, and the alternatives are plenty. Functions like cropping, or adding some frills are regular in the software. But handling some of them is not such an easy task, especially if you are attempting to crop a certain area, as the process does not allow dragging your selection over the desired image component, but instead have to deal with "Up", "Down", "Left", "Right" buttons or choose the more comfortable alternative, keyboard arrows.
Interesting functions like masking part of the image, shadow dropping or adding a halo all around it are definitely going to make your day, as the results are truly showing themselves effective. Concerning masking, you benefit from a total of 48 preset masks or you can create your own by single-handedly adjusting the visible part (it's just a matter of dragging some dots).
Dripping a shadow behind the picture is not too difficult to obtain, especially when there is nothing complicated then setting the depth and intensity. Depth goes on 20 levels while intensity is scaled to 10, going from "darker" to "lighter". Unfortunately, pitch black is the only color you can choose for the shadow.
But you can go for a halo all around the image and this option supports changing the color to anything you want. Actually color-choosing and the fact that it surrounds the image are the only difference between halo and shadow dropping options. The same 10 level intensity is available and the depth has a 20 notches scale.
Transparency is yet another cool feature in the arsenal of the application, allowing you the modification of image visibility in the collage. Going from zero to 255 in a drag of the mouse, the option benefits from preview function to get a clue on the visibility level.
Arranging the elements of the collage is not limited to simply moving the objects around, as these can be placed on a secondary plan and covered by front plan elements. Playing around with "Send to Back" and "Bring to Front" options permits a better arranging of the items, as well as creating a nice looking effect.
Collage Maker stands for a very good and extremely easy to use tool to create image collages and enhance the tone a bit. All options are within easy reach, not to mention that there is no problem as to their effect on the image. Background "turf" is customizable both in terms of color as well as pattern (there are more than 80 textures at your disposal).
But with all this there is one particular aspect that cannot pass overlooked and that is the lack of the "undo" function. One wrong move and you will have to start all over again. Also, adding some effects and more options for enhancing the images would be a great idea.
The Good
Collage Maker comes as a very easy solution for creating nice looking image montages, its use ensuring little effort from the user when handling the tools and a very mild learning curve.
You can use masks to show only part of the image, crop it, enable transparency, rotate the picture or frill it up with a colored halo or drop a shadow.
Collages can be saved under JPEG, BMP and GIF image formats or they can be saved under the proprietary COL format if you plan on working on it later.
The Bad
The lack of an "undo" button is a serious issue as it affects the entire functionality and ease of use of the application, causing a single mistake to be enough to start the image adjusting process all over again.
Also, adding a few more effects for the images and additional editing options would greatly increase the overall value of the software.
The interface needs to be re-designed in order to fit the current aesthetic standards.
The Truth
Collage Maker is very good, but not excellent and, although it does not come short of indispensable options (save for the "undo" function), it does need more details to make it more competitive and up-to-date to the present standards.
Working with it is easy and the results are very good, but could be better with more image editing functionality and a pinch of effects to be applied.
You have 31 days of for testing a fully functional trial version. Evaluate it and decide upon its value.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
