Collage editor
Combine several snips into one image with the dynamic collage editor: grid, justified rows, or masonry layouts, with live preview.
The collage editor stitches several snips into a single image using one of three dynamic layouts. It is the fastest way to turn a handful of captures into one shareable picture, with a live preview that is pixel-for-pixel identical to the file you save.
Opening the editor
Open the collage editor from the Collage button in the gallery toolbar. Unlike most actions, it does not rely on a gallery multi-selection: the editor carries its own image picker (a thumbnail tray along the bottom), so you choose which snips to combine from inside the editor itself.
The window opens always-on-top and centred on the monitor under your cursor, so it sits above any floating snips you have on screen.
When the editor opens, it pre-selects a starting set:
- Any snips that are currently floating start selected and already laid out in the collage.
- If none of the floating snips are available in the tray, the first few snips (up to four) are auto-selected so you immediately see a collage instead of an empty canvas.
Note: The editor never modifies your existing snips. On Save it composites a brand-new image and adds it to the gallery as a new snip, leaving the originals untouched.
The thumbnail tray
The tray runs along the bottom of the window and is the editor’s image picker. It shows every snip available to the collage as an 84-pixel thumbnail; if there are more than fit, the strip scrolls horizontally.
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Tap a dimmed thumbnail | Adds that snip to the collage (appended to the end of the order) |
| Tap a selected thumbnail | Removes that snip from the collage |
Thumbnails that are part of the collage are drawn at full opacity with a blue border and a numbered badge in the top-right corner; thumbnails not in the collage are dimmed and have no badge.
The numbered badge is the snip’s 1-based position in the collage order. Adding a snip appends it after the current last position; removing one renumbers the rest. This order drives how cells are placed in every layout and which slot each image fills.
Tip: The order you add images in is the order they appear. To reorder, you can remove and re-add, or — more directly — swap two cells in the preview (see Reordering by swapping).
Layouts
Pick a layout from the three buttons in the top toolbar. All three recompute live as you add images, change the column count, or drag the sliders.
| Layout | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Grid | Uniform square cells. Each image is cover-fit (scaled to fill, then centre-cropped) into its cell. A partial last row is stretched to fill the full width, so there is no ragged gap. |
| Rows | Justified, Telegram-album-style rows. Images keep their aspect ratio, and each row is scaled so it spans the full width. |
| Masonry | Equal-width, Pinterest-style columns. Each image keeps its aspect ratio and drops into the currently shortest column. |
Note: The default layout is Rows.
How the column count is used
The column control (the − / + buttons either side of the number in the top toolbar) is read differently per layout, between 1 and 8 columns:
- Grid — the exact number of cells per row.
- Rows — the approximate number of images per row. Wide images count for more, so a row may hold fewer images when they are wide.
- Masonry — the number of equal-width columns.
The default is 3 columns.
Cell controls and sliders
The bottom toolbar holds the editing controls.
| Control | Range | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Gap slider | 0–40 | The spacing, in working units, between cells and around the edge of the collage. |
| Round slider | 0–80 | The corner radius applied to every cell. Corners are anti-aliased, and the radius is clamped so it never exceeds half a cell’s shorter side. |
Both sliders show their current rounded value next to the slider, and both update the preview live.
Background
Choose the collage background from the swatches in the top toolbar. Four modes are available:
| Mode | Swatch | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Transparent | Checker swatch | No background. The saved PNG keeps full transparency; a dark checkerboard is shown in the preview so “no background” reads clearly. |
| White | White swatch | Solid white. |
| Black | Black swatch | Solid black. |
| Custom | Color chip | Any HSV color you pick from the wheel. |
To set a custom color, tap the round color chip at the end of the swatch row to open the HSV wheel panel:
- Hue is the angle around the wheel; saturation is the distance from the centre. Tap or drag inside the wheel to pick.
- The brightness slider beneath the wheel (with the sun icon) adjusts the value (lightness) of the picked color.
Picking from the wheel switches the background mode to Custom automatically.
Tip: Use the transparent background when you plan to drop the collage onto another surface — for example, pasting it over a colored slide. The cell corner radius is preserved as real transparency around each rounded image.
Reordering by swapping
To swap two images, tap two cells in the preview:
- Tap the first cell — it gets a blue highlight, marking it as the pending swap.
- Tap a second cell — the two images trade positions.
Tapping the same cell twice cancels the pending swap. Removing an image from the tray also clears any pending swap.
Because positions are stored as the collage order, a swap is reflected immediately in the preview, the tray badge numbers, and the saved image.
Keyboard
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
Esc | Cancel and close the editor without saving |
Saving
When you are happy with the preview, tap Save. The editor:
- Loads each selected snip from disk at full resolution (the tray uses thumbnails only for speed).
- Composites them using the exact same layout maths as the preview, so what you see is what you get.
- Cover-fits each image into its cell with anti-aliased rounded corners, alpha-blended over the chosen background.
- Adds the finished image to the gallery as a brand-new snip.
The output is sized to a 2048-pixel long edge, with the short edge following the collage’s aspect ratio (clamped to a maximum of 4096 pixels per side).
Save is disabled while the collage is empty — you must have at least one image selected. Tap Cancel (or press Esc) to discard and close without creating a snip.
Note: The preview and the saved file are produced by the same layout code, so the collage you arrange on screen is exactly the image you get.
See also
- Floating snips — the pinned overlays whose contents start pre-selected in the collage editor.
- Annotation editor — mark up a single snip with pen, shapes, arrows, and text.
- Gallery and search — where the collage toolbar button lives and where the saved collage lands.
- Sharing and export — send or upload the collage once it is in the gallery.