By How to Make Photo Collage on iPhone: 4 Ways Explained
Apple’s Photos app lets you easily edit images from your camera roll. However, if you want to stitch several of them into a single image, there is no such tool in the app that allows you to do so. However, there are other ways you can make a collage on your iPhone and in this post, we will help you make collages in different ways with four apps – Shortcuts, Google Photos, Instagram Layout and Canva.
Method 1: Using Shortcuts
Apple’s native Shortcuts app can be used to perform actions not built into an iPhone as well as automate tasks to get things done. One such thing you can do with shortcuts is create a collage in a pattern that you want to create.
While there is a pre-existing photo grid shortcut in the gallery section of the app, it has a major flaw that only combines images horizontally, causing your images to be stacked side-by-side. This is not a viable way to create collages, as selecting a large number of images will only produce a thin set of images that may be inconvenient to view.
For better personalization, we’re using a community-made Combine Pictures shortcut to add to your iPhone. When you access this shortcut link on your iPhone, tap Add Shortcut.
When this shortcut is added to your device, it should appear in the My Shortcuts tab in the Shortcuts app. To create a collage using this shortcut, select the Combine Images shortcut.
iOS will now open your iPhone library and show you all the pictures you have taken or stored on your device. From here, select the images you want to create a collage from Photos or Album.
Once your favorite photos are selected, tap Add in the top right corner.
The shortcut will prompt you with a dialog asking you what order you want to arrange these images in. Choose either Chronological or Reverse Chronological.
Next, enter the amount of spacing you want between the images, i.e. a gap between individual images in the collage. We recommend setting this range to 10, but you can set it to your desired value yourself. If you don’t want the collage to have any spaces between the images, set this to 0. After setting the image spacing, tap Done.
The shortcut will now ask you how you want the images to be arranged – horizontally, vertically or in a grid. If you’re not sure which one to choose, we’ll help you understand which one suits your needs.
Combine images horizontally – If you have a series of portrait shots, up to 7 of them, this choice would stack your images sequentially into a single row.
Combine images vertically – If you only have up to 3 shots to stack and they are all wide angle shots, you can select this option to align photos vertically in a single column.
Combine images in a grid – If there are 4 or more shots and you want images to be arranged symmetrically in a grid, select this option and the shortcut will output your collage in mxn format depending on the number of photos selected.
Once the collage is created, tap Done at the top left corner.
The shortcut will now ask you how you want to save your new collage. Select Save to camera roll to save the new collage and keep your original images.
The collage is now saved on your iPhone and is available in the Photos app.
Method 2: Using Google Photos
With Google Photos, you can create collages in minimal steps without much effort. Although making a collage with it is easy, there are some limitations when using the app. One downside to Google Photos’ collage tool is that you can only select up to 9 photos to combine. Another limitation is that the Photos app creates collages of the images you choose, and once created, there’s no way to manually reposition the photos in a grid or change the grid type directly. This is how you can create a collage with Google Photos in no time at all without additional tools.
To create a collage, open the Google Photos on iOS and tap on the Library tab at the bottom right corner.
In the library, select Utilities from the top.
On the next screen, tap Collage under Create New.
You now need to select the images you want to create a collage with. You can choose between 2 and 9 photos to create your collage. Once you’ve made your selection of images, tap Create in the top right corner.
Google Photos will now create a collage of your selected photos with a layout it thinks works best. From this screen you can share or make other changes to the collage using the onscreen tools.
Method 3: Use Instagram’s layout
As more of us use Instagram to upload our daily memories, you can use the app’s native layout tool to create collages from images you have stored on your iPhone, or one directly with an in-app camera record, tape.
However, Instagram’s tool has two limitations – you can’t combine more than 6 images into a grid, and while you can reposition each image’s position, the number of available arranging options is limited to 6 grid types.
Add pictures to your collage
So we use Instagram app’s standalone version Layout for this method to create a more personalized collage. Once downloaded, open the layout app on your iPhone and allow access to all your photos on iPhone.
In the layout app, you can see all the images recently saved on your iPhone. If you want to choose a different folder or album to view and select images from, tap Recents in the lower-left corner and select your preferred folder/album.
Now you will see all the images that have been saved to the selected location. Select the images from which you want to create a collage. When creating a collage, you can choose between 2 and 9 photos.
Once you’ve selected all of the images, you can see the different grids your images are arranged in at the top of the screen.
Depending on the selected images, you will see a different number of layouts and can choose from different layout types.
To cycle through different layouts, simply swipe from right to left in the layout row at the top.
When you find your preferred layout here, tap on it to make more changes.
Edit your collage
You will now see the app’s editing screen, which allows you to flip/mirror images in a layout, replace an image, and add frames to your collage.
To reposition a photo in the collage, tap and hold on it and drag it to where you want it in the collage to place it.
To resize photos in the layout, select an image and drag one of its borders to your preferred size. Note that when an image is resized within a layout, the adjacent images or those in the same row/column are also scaled accordingly.
To flip an image vertically, tap an image from the grid and select Mirror.
To flip an image horizontally, tap an image from the grid and select Flip.
To replace an image, select it from the layout and tap Replace.
Next, select an image to use as a replacement, then tap Done. The new image replaces the selected one in the collage.
To add borders between photos and around the collage, tap Borders at the bottom.
When you have made all changes to the collage, tap Save in the top right corner.
The collage will be automatically saved to your iPhone’s library and you’ll get more options to share it to Instagram, Facebook or any other app.
Method 4: Using Canva
If, like us, you use Canva to design headers, presentations, and posters on Canva, you should also know that the app can also be used to create collages from images on your iPhone. If you want to customize your collage with text and other effects, Canva can come in really handy as you can choose from a range of templates so you can get started right away.
Before creating a collage, download the Canva app from the App Store and create an account with your Google/Apple account or an email address if you don’t already have an account for the service. Once you’re done, open the Canva and you’ll land on the For You screen.
Swipe left on the For You at the top, then select the More.
In More from Photo Collage, select from the list of design options.
Now you will see a number of collage templates to choose from. Scroll down and select the template you want to use for your collage by tapping on it.
Note: Before choosing a template, you should know how many images you want to create a collage from and whether the template has the space required to fit all your photos. Some templates have images lined up in a grid and others have text, stickers, and frames; So choose the template that you think best suits your collage.
The template will now load on screen and Canva will ask if you want to add photos from your library to create the collage. From here, tap Select More Photos.
Next, select the images from your iPhone library that you want to create a collage from and then tap on Done.
After that, you should see the selected template.
Here you can add your own photo from iPhone by tapping an image from the template and selecting the Replace below.
In the pop-up window that appears, tap on the photo you want to create a collage from.
The selected image will now be copied into the collage.
You can repeat this step to select and replace other photos for your collage.
If the template contains text, you can edit it and write your own caption by tapping the text and selecting Edit.
If you want to change the font of the text, select the text part from the template and choose from Font.
You can then choose the font you want to apply to the collage.
Canva also lets you change a template’s background by tapping on it and selecting Color from the bottom.
When you do this, you can choose the color you want to apply to the highlighted area from the available colors on the canvas, colors extracted from your photos, or other standard colors.
Additionally, you can change the spacing between elements in your collage by tapping anywhere on your design and selecting Spacing from the bottom toolbar.
After selecting this option, adjust the grid spacing by dragging the slider left/right.
You can make further changes to the collage by adding animations, transparency and other effects.
Once you’ve made all the changes you want, tap the Share icon in the top right corner.
In the pop-up window that appears, select Download to save the collage to your iPhone.
That’s all you need to know about making a collage on an iPhone.
