A collage turns many images into one composition. Here is how to choose, arrange and balance them — whether you want a tidy photo grid or a free, layered artwork.
A collage is a composition assembled from several pieces — photographs, paper, text, textures, colour blocks — placed together so that they read as a single image. The word comes from the French coller, to glue. Digital collage keeps the idea and removes the glue: you can move, resize, layer and replace every piece until the whole feels right.
Pick images that share something: a colour range, a quality of light, a subject or a mood. For print, every image must be sharp at the size it will occupy — roughly 300 dpi at final size. Include a few close-ups and a few wide shots so the eye has variety to travel through.
In plim, select your images and press the Collage button (also in the View menu). The first click arranges them in rows of equal height that fill the page; the second shuffles them into a different collage; the third restores your original arrangement. With nothing selected, it works on every item of the page. It is a fast way to explore compositions before refining by hand.
Then take over: drag pieces to swap them, crop to remove dead space, scale one piece up to create the focal point, and add a text label or a colour block where the layout needs a pause. Zoom out regularly — a collage is judged at a glance, not at 400%.
Set the page size first — social-media sizes, A-series and US paper formats are available as presets — then export as PNG or PDF. For print, work on a 300 dpi preset such as A4 or a 50 × 70 cm poster, and check the result at actual size.