How to Make a Photo Collage Using Google Drawings

You can create collages using third-party online tools, but most of them contain advertisements or add watermark. Well the good news is that you can create a collage using Google Drawings. For those who don’t know, Google Drawings is a free tool for basic graphic creation and editing. We will show you how to create a collage of images in Google Drawings.

You can access Google Drawings directly from Drawings.google.com or open it from Google Drive. In Google Drawings, you can add multiple images, text, layer images, and do various other image manipulations. We covered all of this in the post.

Let’s learn how to create a collage in Google Drawings.

How to create a collage of images in Google Drawings

Step 1: Open Drawings.google.com in a web browser on your PC.

2nd step: A blank canvas will open. Click on Insert and then on Image. You will be offered different ways to add your photos. You can add from Google Drive, Google Photos, your computer, add via URL, or search the web in Google Drawings. Select the mode to add your images.

Step 3: Add all the images you want in your collage using step 2. All the images will be stacked on top of each other. You can add more images later. Do not worry.

Step 4: Now you need to customize the collage according to your needs and preferences. Here are various editing tips to create a beautiful collage in Google Drawings.

Resize photos

To resize an image, click once to select it. After selecting them, use the tiny boxes available at the four corners to increase or decrease the size of the image evenly. Slide it in or out using the corners. You can also resize the image using the tiny boxes in the middle, but that won’t preserve the aspect ratio.

City Photos

To change the position of any photo, you can select it by clicking on it. Then drag the image to the new position. You can also use the four arrow keys on your keyboard to change its position.

Use guides

When you resize or move an image, you will be guided by red lines to perfectly align the image with other images. You can take their help to create well-designed collages.

If the red alignment lines are not visible, click the Show option in the menu bar at the top. Go to Snap to and choose Guides.

Rotate image

To rotate an image, right-click on it and select Rotate. Then choose how you want to rotate your image.

Otherwise, if you want to rotate the image in any direction, select the image. Then rotate the image using the handle at the top of the image.

Crop image

Sometimes you might find that one of your images in the collage has an unwanted area. Instead of using a third-party editor to crop the image, you can do the same in Google Drawings.

To crop an image, double click on the image and a black border will appear around it. Use this border to select the area you want to keep. Then press Enter button to crop the image. You can also right click on the image and select Crop from the menu. Otherwise, click on the Crop option present in the top menu.

Crop the image into a shape

To make your collage look interesting, you can crop your images to different shapes. You don’t have to do it manually. Simply select the image and click on the arrow icon next to the Crop tool present in the top bar. Select how you want to hide your image.

To arrange the image inside the shapes, double-click and drag it. You can rotate, resize, and move the image within a shape. This is what the collage looks like using different shapes.

Point: Check out five websites to crop your images into shapes.

Rearrange images

Google Drawing supports image overlay. So you can add one image on top of another and move it forward or backward just like you would in any classic photo editor.

To do this, right click on the image and choose Order. Select the option of your choice.

Add and customize an image border

You can add and customize the border individually for each image in the collage. You can choose the style, width and color of the border. To do this, select the image and click on the appropriate border tools in the top bar.

Add text

If you want, you can also add text to your collage. To do this, click Insert> Text Box. Type the desired text. Likewise, you can add shapes and lines to your collage.

Pro tip: To draw on your collage, go to Insert> Line> Squiggles.

Other image editing options

You can further customize your individual images using various formatting options. For example, you can recolor images, add shadows or highlights, etc. To do this, right click on the image you want to edit and choose Format Options. Formatting options will appear in the right sidebar. Apply them as needed.

Step 5: Google drawing files are saved to your Google Drive account. You can access and edit them at any time from Google Drive.

When your collage is ready, you can download it as an image file or use the collage in a Google Docs document.

To download the collage as an image, click File and then Download. Select the picture format.

Use Google drawings for collage

This is how you can create awesome collages in Google Drawings without any problem. To reiterate, you can also use the collages created in Google Drawings outside of this one. You just need to download the collage as an image as shown above. You can then add it to Google Slides, PowerPoint presentation or even a Word document.