sandeep ([info]deepsan) wrote,
2005-02-24 22:14:00
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Cross platform, freeware life poster using XnView

If you have seen the instructions on how to create a life poster on the Mac using iPhoto or on the PC using Photoshop and wondered how to do this using freeware, then

Step 1:
Download Xnview for your platform.
Step 2:
Collect all the images you need into a directory. I am using 30 random images from a recent trek each of size 3008x2000 as an example.
Step 3:
Open XnView and browse to the directory containing the images.
Optional : Resize the images using "Tools->Sequence Convert" to the size/ratio you want or crop the images. A 20" by 30" print may require a 3:2 ratio. This can be done later also on the final image(which is what I did).
Step 4:
Select all the images and click on the "Tools->Create Contact Sheet". Time to do some math...and select the parameters you need.
This is the setup I used:
XnViewSetup
I have divided the 30 images into 6 columns and 5 rows. Considering my individual image size as 3000x2000, this results in a combined image of approximately 18000x10000. I have chosen half that(one fourth if you think about it) and hence set the final image size to 9000x5000. Filenames, headers, footers are all your choice but I have not selected any of those options.
Click on the "Create" button and wait for XnView to do the magic. With some luck on the parameters, you should get an image properly aligned.
Step 5:
Optional : Resize the image to your desired ratio(eg 3:2).
Save the resulting image in the TIFF format and you are ready to go.
My sample TIFF was 131 MB in size:
Contact sheet

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  • 22 comments

Anonymous

February 25 2005, 03:08:42 UTC 7 years ago

The same thing can also be done in IrfanView. The way I did mine, I cropped the images to 4x6 with Picasa (and corrected the colors, etc.) and then used IrfanView to make the contact sheet. Same process, different software!

[info]deepsan

February 25 2005, 05:16:55 UTC 7 years ago

Irfanview was the first one I tried. It gave the following error message:
"Error: Can't allocate memory for result image(s) !
Out of memory".
That is when I tried XnView which did not seem to have this problem even for a bigger image.

[info]haleylegyz

July 16 2008, 02:57:23 UTC 3 years ago

The image can then be cropped, to eliminate all the surrounding Destop that was also captured in the screen shot.

[info]alidalyjog

July 16 2008, 22:34:07 UTC 3 years ago

The way I did mine, I cropped the images to 4x6 with Picasa (and corrected the colors, etc. ) and then used IrfanView to make the contact sheet.

Anonymous

February 28 2005, 15:55:30 UTC 7 years ago

Margins between pix

I'm not sure why mine keeps coming out with gaps between pictures.

The result that you show makes that gap very narrow. How can I adjust that?

Thanks!

[info]deepsan

March 1 2005, 08:13:09 UTC 7 years ago

Re: Margins between pix

You need to resize the images to get them in the same size/ratio.
Also, when setting the final image size, you need to consider the size of the individual images and the number of rows and columns. In my example:
3000x2000 images arranged into a 6x5 tile gives a total image size of 18000x10000 with a perfect fit. I have taken 1/2 of this to get 9000x5000. Once you get this tightly fit image, you can resize it to the size of the print you need.

Anonymous

March 2 2005, 09:51:09 UTC 7 years ago

Re: Margins between pix

I went ahead and tried Picasa2 (I didn't like the original) and used the Collage function - chose GRID, and viola! I have a Life Poster without having to calculate any math or ratios. It does it for me.

Try it out!

[info]deepsan

March 2 2005, 10:05:05 UTC 7 years ago

Re: Margins between pix

I guess it is a question of flexibility. I too had tried Picasa2 but it produces a square image(with square pictures) without giving me the options to customize anything at all and it also gave a smaller image when I needed something for a 20"x30" print.

[info]juliasynor

July 16 2008, 04:59:36 UTC 3 years ago

Once you get this tightly fit image, you can resize it to the size of the print you need. ( Reply to this )( Parent )( Thread ) Re: Margins between pix (Anonymous) am UTC ( link ) I went ahead and tried Picasa2 (I didn't like the original) and used the Collage function - chose GRID, and viola.

Anonymous

September 20 2005, 06:37:29 UTC 6 years ago

photo collage

Doing it in columns does not look great or nice. It should look natural, not in a controlled force pattern or form, it must at the end of the job look like one big picture/photo. I da seen it at kodak, very nice that way.

Anyone can do it this way, even on MS Word, just paste all photos on 1 sheet and resize.

Anonymous

January 3 2006, 01:55:04 UTC 6 years ago

Happy 1 Year Birthday Life Poster

I wrote an article about Life Poster's 1 year birthday (http://www.dkworldwide.com/techlife/archives/2006/01/01/life-poster-a-picasa-how-to/trackback/) for my blog which references your work with XnView. I wrote a how-to on making a LifePoster with Picasa. My blog is also published in a newspaper so maybe the less tech savvy can benefit from your great work.

Anonymous

September 16 2006, 14:54:24 UTC 5 years ago

Broken Image

The sample TIFF link is broken.

Anonymous

September 18 2006, 03:44:22 UTC 5 years ago

Re: Broken Image

Fixed.

[info]thisisnotapril

February 2 2007, 15:43:54 UTC 5 years ago

Thank you so much for posting this! I've been trying to make one of these for use as a web banner and have had zero luck. Picasa is too inflexible, Photoshop requires a degree - these instructions are super easy and the result is great.

Anonymous

February 26 2007, 03:56:04 UTC 5 years ago

nothing happens

nothing happens after i hit Create in "Tools->Create Contact Sheet"...what could i have done wrong? what does the contact sheet look like, in the browser or somewhere else?

[info]deepsan

February 26 2007, 06:10:50 UTC 5 years ago

Re: nothing happens

Check if you have selected the images you want; it usually takes some time to create the final image which opens up automatically once the process is complete.

Anonymous

February 26 2007, 21:37:05 UTC 5 years ago

file names

Hi, when I create the collage, the photo file names are showing up underneath the photos. Do you know how I can get rid of them?
Thanks!

[info]deepsan

February 27 2007, 04:23:02 UTC 5 years ago

Re: file names

just un-select the Header, Footer and Show Info options in the Create Contact Sheet dialog.

Anonymous

October 25 2007, 17:49:28 UTC 4 years ago

Another method

I wrote a little script that does this - all you need to do is tell it how many pictures across and how many down you want and point it to a folder of photos. Job done. You can get it here: http://wiki.edsimpson.co.uk/index.php/Make_a_Life_Poster

There are of course many built-in parameters that can be easily edited, such as poster size, margins, etc.

Anonymous

November 24 2007, 14:56:08 UTC 4 years ago

Works like a charm

Thanks buddy - it works brilliantly and overall the software lets you do so many other things as well. Great find!!!

The key is to make sure that the resizing of images is done and you do the math to figure out what the final size of image is with borders/margins -

I had a 15x15 (225) image collage - i changed all the images to 640x480 - gave a 100 pixel margin. So my resulting image size was 15*640+100 X 15*480+100

It was a 14MB jpg as a result of this...

[info]cyberscorpion

June 4 2009, 20:41:11 UTC 2 years ago

Dude I found your article here... http://lifehacker.com/034064/how-to-make-a-life-poster-with-freeware

[info]deepsan

June 5 2009, 02:32:33 UTC 2 years ago

I know, it has been there for a very long time :)
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