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I have 6 pictures all with the exact same dimensions, and I want to tile them in a 2 row, 3 column grid. I have been searching the net all day and got lost between fancy photo collages, photo mosaics (which require a "master image") and other irrelevant results. Surely there must be an easy way to do this. Hopefully using freeware software available for Microsoft Windows.

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    \$\begingroup\$ For printing or for online use? Depending on your use, the best approach may be desktop publishing software, in which case graphicdesign.stackexchange.com might be better. Or, if it's for the web, you might not want to actually not combine them into one graphic file but rather have an HTML page with the layout and captions. \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Commented Dec 23, 2011 at 14:34
  • \$\begingroup\$ If it is for online use, I would suggest posting a link to an example of what you are trying to do, and having this question migrated to the graphic design stack exchange site. \$\endgroup\$
    – dpollitt
    Commented Dec 23, 2011 at 15:22
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    \$\begingroup\$ it's for printing and also distribution via email. I want to create a single image from six separate images. \$\endgroup\$
    – user7775
    Commented Dec 23, 2011 at 15:57
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    \$\begingroup\$ look up ImageMagick; a command like "montage -geometry 640x480+0+0 orig* out.jpg" should do it. Also, there are a couple related questions: photo.stackexchange.com/questions/10424 and photo.stackexchange.com/questions/14494 \$\endgroup\$
    – user2910
    Commented Dec 23, 2011 at 19:04
  • \$\begingroup\$ Try photoscape, it is a wonder piece for editing photos and more......animating, tiling, combining and above all it is free. You won't believe the results. \$\endgroup\$
    – user20538
    Commented Jun 18, 2013 at 12:08

8 Answers 8

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The term you are looking for is diptych or triptych. If you search on those terms you will find what you are looking for. If you use photoshop or GIMP, you can use actions or templates to place multiple images and create borders.

If you want standalone program to do just this one thing, here is one free (open source) program that does a good job. It is called DipStych.

Download from here

Diptych is very easy to use. You browse for your photos, preview them, and can then set the size and color of borders. It will resize the individual images to be the same height and/or width

Here is an example I've done:

enter image description here

It will stitch images vertically or horizontally, but not both, but it is easy to use. You could stitch 3 images horizontally and create one image. Then repeat with your second row of three. Then pull those two images back into the program and this time stitch them horizontally. So if I do another:

enter image description here

And now stitch them vertically on top of one another:

enter image description here

You would need to experiment with the borders in each step since the last step has caused that middle border to double up.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes it is, early morning for me! Will edit thanks. \$\endgroup\$
    – MikeW
    Commented Dec 23, 2011 at 19:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ Hey great images too! \$\endgroup\$
    – dpollitt
    Commented Dec 23, 2011 at 19:38
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    \$\begingroup\$ Hmmm. Hexptych? \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Commented Dec 23, 2011 at 19:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ @mattdm polyptych, to be more generic :) \$\endgroup\$
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Oct 11, 2022 at 3:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ "If you use photoshop or GIMP, you can use actions or templates to place multiple images and create borders." -> could you please elaborate? How to efficiently create a photo collage in Photoshop that isn't a plain grid? \$\endgroup\$
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Oct 12, 2022 at 2:32
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I had this exact question, google brought me here. Had Photoscape installed. Didn't realise it could do it.

Photoscape -> Combine (top menu) -> Down/Side/Checker(aka grid) on the right -> add your images and tweak.

Problem solved complete with inner and outer borders, optional image stretch and realtime preview.

Respect for the "diptych or triptych" explanation of terms!

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One can use Tych Panel (code repo), which is the free extension for Adobe Photoshop:

Tych Panel is an extension for Adobe Photoshop that automates diptychs and triptychs creation. It supports an arbitrary number of layouts using a powerful row/column compositing paradigm. Together with a super easy panel interface, Tych Panel is the ultimate diptych, tripych & ntych automation tool. Tych Panel is released as open source and licensed under the MIT license.

enter image description here

enter image description here

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Adobe Photoshop has a built-in feature to do this: File → Automate → Contact Sheet II.

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I have 6 pictures all with the exact same dimensions, and I want to tile them in a 2 row, 3 column grid

One can use ImageMagick (open source, gratis and cross-platform) and use the command (assuming that the photos are PNGs):

montage *.png -tile 1x -mode Concatenate out.jpg
  • -tile 1x: concatenate vertically (use -tile x1 for horizontal, or e.g. -tile 2x3 to tile them in a grid with 2 columns and 3 rows)
  • -mode Concatenate: concatenate without any white space between the images

More details on the montage program (part of ImageMagick) if interested.

Some ImageMagick useful commands for pre-processing your photos before the collage:

  • you can resize the image (to approximately 2MB in this example) using:

    mogrify -define jpeg:extent=2048KB out.jpg

  • you can modify the dimension of a bunch of images using (to 30% in this example):

    mogrify -resize 30x30% *.png

Also note that JPEG/JFIF supports a maximum image size of 65535×65535 pixels, while the PNG specification doesn't appear to place any limits on the width and height of an image; these are 4 byte unsigned integers, which could be up to 4294967295 .

enter image description here

and if you are curious: Why does ImageMagick's montage limit the JPG output to 65500 instead of 65535?

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One can use Blogstomp/ (non-free, Windows/macOS):

enter image description here

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One can use Adobe Express photo book templates (online, freemium):

enter image description here

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One can use Picture Collage Maker Pro (40 USD, Windows and macOS, 15-day trial available). Limitation: max grid size is 30x30. An axis may not have over 30 items.

Example with picture 1 and picture 2:

enter image description here

enter image description here

enter image description here

enter image description here

Final collage:

enter image description here

Note: if one sets margin X = 0 and margin Y = 0, Picture Collage Maker Pro does not respect that and still adds a slight margin on the X axis, i.e. between columns (tested with Picture Collage Maker Pro 4.1.4). Example of a 2x3 grid with supposedly margin X = 0 and margin Y = 0:

enter image description here

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