How to Create a Photo Montage with Microsoft Publisher

Making a photo montage in Microsoft Publisher can be fun and simple with just a few quick steps, creativity and imagination to help you along the way. Your photo montage should first of all match in theme and can be designed in numerous ways. Most photo montages always have a picture that is the center of attention, followed with smaller pictures around it. Why make one? Why not? Montages are great snapshots of special events or everyday memories you catch. From birthdays, proms, weddings, Fourth of July events to the first time your child eats solid foods montages can bring a variety of memories together in one place to share for eternity. Making a simple montage with Microsoft Publisher:

1. Open up Microsoft Publisher and figure out what style of board you want, whether horizontal or vertical. Template design choices? You can find them by clicking on publication designs to pick one.

2. Your main picture, the center of attention - For this montage we'll start with five photos. First place the picture in the middle of the board by clicking on the picture. You should be able to edge it over with your arrow keys or simply drag it over by holding down on your mouse. Now, to make your montage defined, you should make this picture the biggest of the five. You grab the corner of the image and hold the mouse down to do this. This will be the one you want everyone to look at first and come back to when they're done looking at the rest of them.

3. Position-For the rest of the images, place the second image above the main image, centering it. Next place the third image to the right of the main image, centering that one as well. The fourth image should go to the left of the main image, while the fifth image will go below the main image.

4. Give them borders- Click on a pic and on the picture tool bar click on a border (and border color) to apply to the image. Black, for me, has always been a favorite cause it's a powerful color, but you can use others. I make my borders nothing less than 1.75 pts so it doesn't look silly and take away from the picture.

5. Backgrounds-Here's where I get really picky because the last thing you want to do is select a background that takes away from your pictures. You don't want people complimenting your background and say nothing about your pictures! I usually go with a solid background, or a background that matches my montage. If I were going to do a wedding montage, I'd go with something along that theme, and so forth. So, to place your background click FORMAT and then BACKGROUND to bring up the background palette. Choose what you want and hit enter.

6. Title your montage- This may be my second most detailed part because you want to pick a font that matches what you're doing. No worries though-- In your menu above you can see what each font looks like so it will be easy to choose! Once you've looked them over click INSERT and then hit TEXT BOX, afterwards drawing it on the board. You can pretty much have a Microsoft word flashback at this point because the menu speaks for itself. You have your formatting, the font, and size all up there for you to choose from. In the montage we're making, you can put text to the right and left of the top photo above your main photo, and vice versa at the bottom. Here are some fonts I usually pick: Monotype Corsiva, Times New Roman (Bold, Italics), Eurostar Black Extended, Peinaud, and Impact Bold (sometimes with italics)

Saving your montage

Once you've completed it, check it over and make sure everything is where you want it and in FILE hit SAVE AS. I usually save my work as .JPEG because it's just easier that way.

Presenting your montage

Once you print it out, pick a frame that will match your fantastic creation. If it's about weddings, staple ruffles around your frame to signify the event, or place Halloween decorations around it if you've got some ghosts and goblins for a montage. Make it as original as possible and I'm sure you'll get a lot of feedback that will contain the memories of each picture you've chosen in your montage.