Create photo collages for sharing using Fotor on the Mac

What photo tools do you use on your Apple Mac? If Fotor Photo Editor is not among them you should grab a copy of this free app and start creating impressive collages to save, print or share on social media.

Fotor is a free photo editing app for OS X that enables you to edit photos, create collages and perform batch operations on images. It has some excellent features and is really easy to use.

In this step-by-step guide I will show how to create a collage from your photos and then share the resulting image on Facebook. It took no more than five minutes and I got some good feedback, with people liking and commenting on it. It is a great way to share your photos.

1 Get Foto Photo Editor

Open the Mac App Store and enter Fotor into the search box. Install the app, it is free. Run it afterwards and it displays a menu with three options. Click Collage.

2 Add your photos

When the app starts, ignore everything on the screen and just click the Add button in the top left corner. Fotor needs images to work with and a file browser opens to enable you to select photos.

You can browse any folder on the disk, but most photos will probably be in the Photos library. Scroll down to the bottom in the sidebar and select Photos in the Media section. This enables you to browse all your photos, or choose moments, collections, years and so on.

One photo can be added at a time or several can be loaded at once. Click one photo and Command+click the others, then click Open.

3 Choose a layout

Now you have some photos, go to the top right corner where you can choose a layout. Under Select a ratio is 1:1, 4:3, 3:4 and More (widescreen 16:9 for example). I selected 1:1 which is square, but you choose whichever suits you best.

Below the rations is All 2 3 4 5... and this is a filter for the collage layouts. It is used to select the number of photos you want to insert into the collage. I selected 4 and this shows only those collage layouts for four photos.

Select All to see all layouts or select a number. Click a layout to continue.

4 Create your collage

Let’s zoom out to see the whole screen. The photos that were added are in a panel on the left, layouts are on the right and the selected collage is in the centre. Click and drag photos to the collage and drop them to add them.

Swap them around and experiment, the images might suit one position better than another.

5 Customise the photo

Click a photo and a toolbar is displayed on top of it. There are rotate left and right buttons, mirror vertically and horizontally, and trash. The slider at the top enables the image to be resized. It always fits the frame, but it is useful for zooming in to show some detail or point of interest.

6 Set the border and background

On the right hand side, below the layouts, are the border controls. There are three tabs and the first enables you to adjust the corner. Drag the slider to change it from sharp to round. Photos can have a shadow effect and the second slider sets the size. The third slider changes the width of the gap between photos.

The second tab is used to select the background colour and the third tab is for setting a patterned background.

7 Export the collage

Up near the top right corner is an Export button. Click it and there are options to save the collage to the computer, or share it on Facebook, Flickr or Twitter. Let’s share it on Facebook.

8 Post on Facebook

The first time you do this you will have to authorise the app to post on Facebook, but from then on, you just select Facebook, enter a message or caption, and click Share On Facebook.

Fotor Photo Editor is a great free app and it is perfect for creating collages and sharing them on social media.

App: Fotor Photo Editor - Photo Effect, Picture Collage, Filters and Frame