Digital Photo Prints Montage
Here's a great way to show off your photos

It's sad but true, nobody wants to sit through a two hour photo presentation of your best photos. They may have an interest in hearing about and seeing a few photos, but not an ongoing narration of every detail all your favorite photos. Of course you can bribe them to stick around if you serve food and liquor, but make sure you have enough.

I've figured out a great way to take my best shots, photos that have some impact or provide some great insight to the subject matter. And it doesn’t overwhelm anyone with too much information or bore them to death looking at photos for hours.

After every photo shooting adventure I review the photos when I get home and pick about 7 or 8 of the best ones form that trip. Then I create a montage of my favorites (think of a quilt with irregular shaped squares or rectangles) that fits well onto an 8 X 10 print. I put a small 3 or 4 sentence paragraph about time and place, maybe even the content of one or two of the photos at the bottom, top, or side.

Next step is finding a good 10 X 12 frame that works with these photos and put this 8 X 10 in a the frame with the descriptive paragraph right under the photo. I often put these montages together on our den or family room wall. People can view the photos, read the paragraph, and if interested they can ask to see more. I also send these prints to family members and friends to give a brief overview of our latest photo shoot.

This style of montage and brief description works great for any event, celebration, or photo taking adventure. It also lends itself to making scrapbooks and other ways to store and display information about what’s going on in your family and life. I have several that have to do with fishing trips, school reunions, and lots of other places and memorable experiences.

You can also put these in photo albums as the first page of the selection of photos about the trip. If you or others want to see more, just keep on turning the pages for all the original photos in whatever size you want to print them out for the album.

My wife often makes a copy to take down to the office to sit on her desk. She has several that are of the kids at different ages and vacations on her office wall. She swaps them out every once in awhile for a little change or adds a new one if it’s the latest adventure.

Most photo editing software will allow you to crop and size your photos and place into the montage. Many of the camera manufacturers include this type of software with your camera or you can even find some free programs that will do the job such as Gimp or Picasa. Just do a search in Google to find the latest versions.

You can even save the files as a jpeg and take it down to your local Walgreens or photo printer to get a very high quality print made if your inkjet printer isn’t up to the chore. If you watch for specials or have a coupon you can get an 8 X 10 print for around $2.

You could also create screensavers or desktop backgrounds for your computer with these montages. Use them in any way you would use a single photo. I guarantee that if you start making these little montages you’ll be hooked. It’s fun and they are great quick views of any photo shooting event.