How to Combine Two Images into One Collage

Two photos, one picture. A before-and-after, a screenshot next to the thing it shows, two shots from the same afternoon that only make sense together. Sending them separately loses the point, and most collage apps want an account, or an upload, before they let you do anything at all.

This one does not. The free Collage Maker runs entirely in your browser: your photos never leave your device, there is no watermark on the export, and what you see on the canvas is what you get in the download. Below is the exact flow, two photos start to finish.

What You Need Before You Start

Round these up first, so you are not digging through your camera roll mid-layout:

Two images — the tool takes up to 12 per collage, so two is comfortably inside the limit. Any ordinary image format your browser can open should work; follow the page prompts if a file is refused.
An idea of where it will end up — a square post, a tall story, a wide banner. That decides your canvas size in Step 2, and it is much easier to pick it before you start dragging things around.
Any text you want on it — a caption, a label, a price, a date. Type it out in advance and you will not be composing sentences while a half-finished collage stares back at you.
A desktop or laptop, if you can — the canvas works with touch on a phone, and the tool page says so itself, but for precise work, like grabbing a small corner handle, a larger screen is more comfortable.

One thing worth knowing up front: photos keep their original pixels when you add them, and the canvas renders at the export resolution you choose, up to 4000 px. So a blurry export is almost never the tool's fault — it usually means a small source photo stretched too big. Start with the largest originals you have.

How to Combine Two Images into One Collage, Step by Step

Step 1: Add your two photos

Open the Collage Maker tool and drop both photos onto the dropzone, or click it to pick files from your device. Already copied a photo? Ctrl+V pastes it straight in. Both photos land on the canvas as their own layers, which matters: nothing is merged yet, so you can still move, resize, or delete either one on its own. If a photo lands on top of the other, do not panic — that is just layer order, and Step 3 sorts it out.

Want to follow along as you read? Open Collage Maker in a new tab and drop your two photos in now, so the rest of this guide matches what is on your screen.

**Figure 1.** The tool with two photos just added, before any arranging. Arrow 1 points at the dropzone where photos are added. Arrow 2 points at the canvas, where the second photo sits on top of the first — Photo B is selected, with its corner and rotate handles showing. Arrow 3 points at the toolbar that appears once photos are in. Corresponds to Step 1.

Step 2: Pick the canvas size

Set the canvas before you arrange anything, because changing it later means re-doing your layout. The preset buttons give you 1:1 (1080 by 1080), 1:1 HD (2048 by 2048), 16:9 (1920 by 1080), 9:16 (1080 by 1920), and 4:3 (1600 by 1200). Square for a feed post, tall for a story, wide for a banner — pick the one that matches where this picture will actually live. Need something odd, like a long chat screenshot strip? Type your own width and height, from 100 to 4000 px each, and hit Apply. Background colour lives here too: white is the default, and there is a Transparent checkbox if you want the gaps to stay see-through instead.

Quick detour worth taking: open Collage Maker in a new tab, tap through the presets, and watch the canvas change shape before you commit to one.

**Figure 2.** The canvas size row. Arrow 1 points at the preset buttons (1:1, 1:1 HD, 16:9, 9:16, 4:3). Arrow 2 points at the custom width and height fields with the Apply button. Arrow 3 points at the background colour picker and Transparent checkbox. Corresponds to Step 2.

Step 3: Arrange the two photos

Now the actual arranging. Drag a photo anywhere on the canvas to move it, drag its corner handles to resize it, and drag the round handle above a selected photo to rotate it. If you want it tidy in one click, hit the Grid button — instant neat layout, no fiddling. The Layout button is the other shortcut, and it works once you have 2 to 4 photos on the canvas: it offers Fill, which crops each photo to fill its cell (drag the photo to choose what shows, drag its corner handle to zoom), and Fit, which never crops and shows the whole photo. Fill looks cleaner; Fit is safer when nothing may be cut off, like a screenshot full of text. Layer order is the last piece: Forward and Backward move a photo in front of or behind the other, and Delete removes the selected one outright.

Honestly, this step is easier with your hands on it — open Collage Maker in a new tab, try Grid first, then drag one photo off-grid and see how it feels to place things by hand.

**Figure 3.** Two photos arranged side by side on the canvas after using Grid. Arrow 1 points at the Grid button in the toolbar. Arrow 2 points at a selected photo's corner resize handle. Arrow 3 points at the top corner handle of the selected photo. Corresponds to Step 3.

Step 4: Add text, arrows, or a blur if you need them

Not every collage needs marking up, but this is the step that turns two photos into an explanation. The toolbar carries the same set you know from phone screenshot editors: Brush for freehand drawing, Rect and Circle for shapes, Arrow for pointing at something, Mosaic for blurring out a face, a plate number, or anything private, Text for captions, and Emoji for a quick reaction. The tool page itself suggests the classic meme treatment — a photo plus Text with the outline style on, for top and bottom captions. One habit that saves rework: add your text last, after the photos are placed, because moving a photo after you have captioned it usually means moving the caption too.

If your collage needs a caption, this is the moment to try it live — open Collage Maker in a new tab, pick the Text tool, and drop a caption on your picture.

**Figure 4.** A collage with a text caption and an arrow added. Arrow 1 points at the Text tool in the toolbar. Arrow 2 points at the caption sitting on the photo. Arrow 3 points at the Arrow tool's drawn arrow pointing at a detail in the photo. Corresponds to Step 4.

Step 5: Fix the look of each photo

Two photos from different moments rarely match — one darker, one washed out, one slightly tilted. Select a photo and use Adjust to tune Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, and Exposure until the pair stops clashing. Flip horizontally or vertically if one shot is mirrored, and use Crop if a photo carries dead space at the edges: drag on the canvas to select the crop area, or hit Trim to auto-fit the canvas to your content. Changed your mind about any of it? Ctrl+Z undoes the last step, and Undo sits in the toolbar too. Do this pass before exporting, not after — once it is a flat PNG, the two photos are one picture and you cannot tweak them separately any more.

Before you export, give this a quick pass in the tool itself — open Collage Maker in a new tab, select each photo in turn, and check the brightness matches before you move on.

**Figure 5.** The Adjust panel open for one selected photo. Arrow 1 points at the Adjust button in the toolbar. Arrow 2 points at the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, and Exposure sliders. Corresponds to Step 5.

Step 6: Export as PNG or JPG

Pick your format first, in the dropdown next to the export button: PNG is lossless, JPG exports at 92% quality, which the tool page describes as visually identical to the original for photos. Then hit Export — the button label follows your format choice, Export PNG or Export JPG — and the finished picture downloads at full canvas resolution. In a hurry to paste it somewhere instead? The Copy button copies the collage so you can paste it straight into a chat or document with Ctrl+V, though the tool page warns Copy is not supported in every browser, in which case Export is the fallback. Check the download once: open it, zoom in, and make sure nothing got cut off at the edges.

Nearly there — open Collage Maker in a new tab, set PNG or JPG, hit Export, and check the downloaded picture before you send it anywhere.

**Figure 6.** The export row at the bottom of the tool. Arrow 1 points at the format dropdown set to PNG. Arrow 2 points at the Export button. Arrow 3 points at the Copy button beside it. Corresponds to Step 6.

Which Format Should You Export?

PNG when the picture has text, sharp lines, or a transparent background — lossless means the caption stays crisp and the see-through gaps stay see-through. JPG when it is just photos and the file needs to stay small for sending, since 92% quality keeps photos looking like themselves at a fraction of the size. If you are unsure, export PNG first and keep it as your master copy; you can always make a smaller JPG from it later, but you cannot get the lost detail back the other way round.

Common Problems and Fixes

Photos piled on top of each other? That is just how they land at first. Drag one aside, or hit Grid for an instant tidy layout, then adjust by hand.
A photo refuses to join the collage? Count first — the limit is 12 images per collage. If you are under it, follow the page prompts for that file; the tool page's own workaround for needing more is to export the first collage and add it back as one image.
Something important cropped out? You are on Fill, which crops to fill the cell. Switch to Fit, which never crops, or drag the photo inside its cell to reframe what shows.
Export looks soft? Check the source photo, not the tool: photos keep their original pixels, so a small original stretched across a big canvas will always look soft. Re-add the largest original you have, or pick a smaller canvas.
Text or drawing ended up behind a photo? Layer order. Select it and use Forward to bring it in front, or Backward to send the photo behind it.
Copy button did nothing? Some browsers do not support it — the tool page says so itself. Use Export instead and attach the downloaded file.
Changed your mind mid-edit? Ctrl+Z undoes the last step. It is worth using early and often, before a wrong move gets buried under ten more.

That is the whole job, really: two photos in, canvas picked, arranged, tidied up, exported. The first one takes a few minutes because you are learning where everything lives; the second one is mostly muscle memory. Try it once with two throwaway photos — a tidy Grid collage, a caption, one export — and the flow will be there when a picture actually matters.

Open Collage Maker — Free

No sign-up, no upload, no watermark added to your export. Your files stay on your device.