It seems that the question comes up every few weeks over at PatternReview. 

“How do I make a storyboard?” 

“How do I get pictures in a horizontal row”?

                                                          “I can’t enter this contest because I don’t know how to make a composite picture!”

So here is how I do it.  Consider this a tutorial.  From me.  Will wonders ever cease??!!

Tutorial- Making a composite using PowerPoint

So students, you have decided to enter a contest in PatternReview, or want to put together a collection of photo’s, but don’t know how?  Follow these directions and you should be able to stop pulling your hair out- those bald spots look so unattractive!

Open up Powerpoint.  First make sure you have it!  Open up a blank “slide”.  There are a few ways to do that.  Click on “file”, “new”, then on the far right side “blank presentation”.  Or you can cut out the default text boxes too.

Composite1

Now pictures…For fun I will use photos of my darlings. 

 Go to …

Insert  

Picture  

From File  

Then choose your picture.  Do this again for all the pictures you want to be included on the composite.

 It will begin to look something like this.

Arrange the photo’s.  Preferably creatively!

Just click on them and drag.

 Now it is time to save it.  Click on Save As  then name the file however  you wish.  **important** save the file as a JPEG file!

 Now close PowerPoint and go to wherever you have saved your file.  Hint- It will likely be in your Pictures file in My Documents.  I TRY (but don’t always succeed) to keep my photo’s/blogging files and PR files fairly organized in a way that makes sense to me!

If you double click on the file name/thumbnail it should open up in whatever photo editor you use.  Here I am using the very simple Microsoft Office Picture Manager.
Here you want to do 2 things. 

First.  Crop your photo, which you can do since you saved it as a JPEG-

right??!  If you couldn’t find you composite, you likely didn’t save it as a JPEG. Go back to PowerPoint and do that!

 Then resize the photo to about 450 by 450 pixels or so. Don’t forget to hit “Okay”  or “done” or however your program confirms an action.  (I think you can tell that while I know a bit about computers, my jargon could use some help!)
No screen shot for this one, I think most people know how to resize a photo.  A hint for those who don’t- Usually you can find the resize button in the “edit picture” section of your photo manager!

Now SAVE THE COMPOSITE!  Save it somewhere that makes sense to you and name it something that makes sense to you!

It should look something like this- Of course instead of my daughters and a wedding venue, it will be of fabulous YOU , your patterns and your garments!

Let me know if I missed anything, or if it didn’t work for you.  I should be able to walk you through it.