# Collage Maker - Free 2, 3 & 4 Photo Grid Online Make photo collages online with 2, 3, or 4 cell layouts. Set gaps and background colour, then export PNG - free, private, browser-only on ToolComb. ### Layout & photos Grid layout Drop up to 4 photos PNG, JPG, WebP · Fills cells in order Photo 1 - empty Replace Photo 2 - empty Replace Photo 3 - empty Replace Photo 4 - empty Replace Gap: 16px Background colour _#ffffff_ Download PNG Clear ### Preview · 1200×900 Add photos to preview ## What is a collage maker? A collage maker is a free online tool that arranges two, three, or four photos into a single grid image with adjustable gaps and background colour. Instead of pasting screenshots into a slide and hoping the alignment holds, you pick a layout - side-by-side, stacked, three-up, left-plus-stack, or a 2×2 grid - drop images into each cell, tune the gutter, and download one PNG. Marketers use collages for before-and-after stories, product colourways, travel diaries, and feature comparisons that need to travel as a single attachment. Social platforms compress aggressively and often crop oddly when you upload multiple separate images. A pre-built collage keeps your intended juxtaposition intact: the left photo stays left, the gap colour stays brand-correct, and the story reads as one composition in Slack, LinkedIn, or email. ToolComb’s collage maker runs entirely in the browser so client galleries, family albums, and unreleased product shots never upload to a collage SaaS for layout. Cover-crop fitting fills every cell without letterboxing, which matches how most marketing grids look. If a face sits near the edge of a portrait, crop first with a sibling tool or accept a slight trim. Gap width controls breathing room: zero gap feels like a seamless mosaic; larger gaps feel editorial and let background colour act as a frame. White backgrounds suit print PDFs; dark backgrounds suit cinematic launches. People search for photo collage maker online, 2 photo collage, 4 picture grid maker, and before after collage generator for this workflow. This page answers those queries with dashed uploads, primary Download PNG, and outline Clear. It is intentionally limited to 2/3/4 cells so decisions stay fast - for poster-scale scrapbooks with twenty photos, use a dedicated design suite. For everyday comparison grids, a focused collage maker is faster and more private. Teams also use collages as lightweight QA artefacts. Dropping four build screenshots into a grid makes regressions obvious in a single Slack image. Support teams attach two-cell before/after collages to tickets. Educators assemble three reference photos for a lesson without wrestling with table layouts in Google Docs. Because export is one PNG, non-designers can participate without learning layers. Privacy and ownership matter when collages include people or confidential UI. Local processing means you decide what leaves the machine. Combine with blur-redact-image when a cell still shows emails or faces that should not ship publicly, then social-media-resizer when the finished grid needs a story or square crop. Together those tools cover a complete path from raw camera roll to publishable collage. Layout choice should follow the story, not habit. Side-by-side two-cell grids excel at before/after and A/B UI comparisons. Stacked two-cell layouts suit tall phone screenshots or portrait product shots. Three-cell rows work for colourways and step sequences. Left-plus-stack layouts emphasize one hero photo while keeping two supporting frames. Four-cell grids are the classic moodboard and SKU comparison shape. Set gap width to match the destination: tight gaps for immersive mosaics, wider gutters when background colour is part of the brand frame. Fill every cell before export so placeholder labels never appear in the PNG you attach to email or Slack. Consistency across source photos matters as much as the grid itself. Try to shoot or export cells with similar white balance, focal length feel, and subject scale so the collage reads as one deliberate composition rather than a random dump. When that is impossible - for example mixing a studio packshot with a lifestyle phone snap - use the left-plus-stack layout so the stronger image owns the large cell. After export, compress only as much as the channel requires; heavy JPG recompression of a PNG collage can reintroduce banding in soft backgrounds and muddy fine text inside UI screenshots. ## How to make a photo collage online Six short steps from empty cells to a downloadable PNG grid. Fill every cell you care about before exporting so placeholders do not appear in the final file. 1. **Open the collage maker** Load this page in any modern browser. Grid layout, gaps, and PNG export all run in your tab - photos are not uploaded to a collage server. 2. **Choose a grid layout** Pick 2 cells side-by-side or stacked, 3 cells in a row or left-plus-stack, or a 4-cell grid. The cell count determines how many images you can place. 3. **Upload images into each cell** Use the dashed dropzone or per-cell file pickers. PNG, JPG, and WebP work. Each cell cover-crops the photo so the collage stays flush without letterboxing. 4. **Set gap and background colour** Raise the gap slider for visible gutters between photos, and pick a background that matches your brand or social theme - white, black, or any hex. 5. **Preview the full collage** Watch the live canvas update as you swap photos or change layout. Empty cells show placeholders until you fill them. 6. **Download the PNG** Export a single PNG collage for posts, moodboards, and decks. Clear removes all images and resets gap and background to defaults. ## Before and after: product colourway announcement ### Before A hardware startup posted three separate phone photos of new colourways in a LinkedIn carousel. Viewers swiped past the second image; comments asked which colour was which because captions alone were easy to miss. The team also struggled to keep white balance consistent across three independent uploads. ### After They choose the three-cell row layout, add the three product shots, set a light grey gap and export one PNG. The result places the colourways together for comparison. They inspect the centered crops before posting so that none of the products is cut off. For a later before/after firmware UI story they used the two-cell horizontal layout with a black background. Same tool, different layout - no new subscription required. They also saved a four-cell grid of desk, packaging, unboxing, and in-hand shots for the press kit so journalists received one coherent visual instead of a ZIP of loosely named JPEGs. ## Practical uses for a collage maker ### 1. Before and after transformations Two-cell layouts make renovations, retouches, and UI redesigns obvious. Keep lighting similar across sources so the gap does not become the main difference viewers notice. ### 2. Product colour and SKU grids Three- or four-cell grids show finishes side by side for shoppers and retailers without a heavy lookbook PDF. ### 3. Travel and event highlight reels Friends and creators pack four favourite frames into one shareable PNG for group chats when albums feel too long. ### 4. Real-estate listing heroes Agents preview kitchen, living, and exterior shots in one collage for email blasts while full galleries live on the listing site. ### 5. Recipe and craft steps Educators show ingredients, mid-step, and plated results in three cells so learners see progression without scrubbing a video. ### 6. Bug and regression reports Engineers attach two-cell collages of broken vs fixed UI in tickets. Local processing keeps staging data off third-party hosts. ### 7. Moodboards for stakeholders Designers drop reference photos into a 2×2 grid for early direction reviews before opening a full Figma board. ### 8. Sports and team highlight cards Coaches assemble four play stills for a weekend recap post with consistent gaps and school colours as background. ### 9. E-commerce size or angle comparisons Merchants show front, side, detail, and lifestyle crops in four cells so shoppers understand scale in one image. ### 10. Classroom and workshop handouts Teachers export a printable collage of diagrams when slide decks are overkill for a one-page worksheet. ### 11. Hiring and portfolio one-pagers Candidates and freelancers assemble three or four project stills into a single PNG for email introductions when a full PDF portfolio feels too heavy for a first touch. ### 12. Nonprofit and campaign storytelling Field teams combine site photos into a four-cell update for donors. Local collage keeps sensitive community images off public mockup platforms until communications approves the release. ## Collage maker options compared Choose based on how many photos you need, whether files can leave the device, and how much typography you require. | Option | Cells / templates | Privacy | Best for | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | ToolComb collage maker | 2 / 3 / 4 grids | Local browser | Fast comparison PNGs | | Canva / Adobe Express | Many templates | Account + cloud | Social kits with text | | Photoshop contact sheets | Flexible | Local files | Print and pro retouch | | Phone gallery collages | Vendor presets | On-device / backup sync | Casual personal posts | | Separate multi-image posts | N/A | Platform upload | When swipe storytelling helps | Pick this page when you want a private 2/3/4 photo grid without an account. Reach for full template suites when you need stickers, captions, and brand kits inside the same file. Hybrid workflows are common: build the grid here, then open the PNG in Canva only if you must overlay long captions for a campaign. ## Limits and tips - Layouts stop at four cells - this is not a scrapbook with dozens of photos. - Cover crop may trim edges; pre-crop faces into the center when composition is critical. - Export is 1200×900 PNG; resize for stories or print with sibling tools. - Extremely large source photos can slow mobile tabs - resize huge camera files first. - Empty cells should be filled before final export to avoid placeholder look. - No automatic colour matching across cells - adjust exposure in-camera or in an editor first. - Animated sources are not preserved as animation inside the collage. - Gap and background interact: zero gap hides background between cells entirely. - Mixed portrait and landscape sources in the same grid will crop differently per cell; shoot or crop to similar aspects when alignment of horizons matters. - Browser memory limits apply: four very large RAW-derived PNGs may feel sluggish - downscale sources to a few megapixels before collage if the tab stalls. ## Privacy for photo collages Photos often include people, homes, or confidential product UI. This collage tool never uploads those files to ToolComb for layout; canvas composition stays in your browser. Closing the tab clears in-memory previews. Remove finished PNGs from shared Downloads folders when collages are sensitive. Redact faces or secrets with blur tools before building a public collage whenever consent or policy requires it. School, healthcare, and workplace photos may need explicit permission even when processing is local - local rendering does not replace consent or retention policies for the exported file you share later. When in doubt, blur identifying details first, then carefully build the collage from the redacted sources only. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is an online collage maker? An online collage maker combines multiple photos into one grid image with controllable layouts, gaps, and background colour. You export a single PNG instead of arranging screenshots manually in a slide or design file. ### Which layouts are available? Two-cell horizontal or vertical, three-cell row, three-cell left-plus-stack, and a classic four-cell grid. Choose the layout that matches how many photos you want to compare or showcase. ### Do my photos upload to a server? No. Images are decoded and drawn with canvas in your browser. Travel photos, client shoots, and unreleased product shots never leave your device for collage rendering. ### How does cover-crop fitting work? Each cell scales the image to fill its rectangle completely, centering and cropping overflow. That keeps the collage flush. Pre-crop important faces into the safe center if edges matter. ### Can I change the gap colour? Gaps reveal the canvas background colour. Set the background picker to white for a clean print look, black for cinematic grids, or a brand hex for social posts. ### What export size do I get? Collages export at 1200×900 PNG by default - a practical size for blogs, decks, and social uploads. Resize afterward if a platform needs a different aspect. ### Is there a photo limit? The selected layout has 2, 3 or 4 cells. Empty cells show labelled placeholders in both the preview and exported image, so fill each cell you want to include. ### Can I make Instagram story collages? The collage exports at 1200 × 900, not a portrait story size. You can adapt it in an image editor, but a tall crop may cut off photos; check the finished result. ### Why not use Canva or Photoshop? Those tools offer more templates and typography. This page is for fast, private 2/3/4 photo grids without an account when you just need a clean comparison collage. ### What formats can I upload? PNG, JPG/JPEG, and WebP are most reliable. HEIC depends on the browser. Animated GIFs typically become a single frame inside their cell. ### Can I replace one photo without redoing the whole collage? Yes. Each cell has a Replace control so you can swap a single image while keeping layout, gap, and background. Multi-drop still fills cells in order when you want a fast first pass. ### Does the collage add watermarks? No. Exports are clean PNGs with only your photos, gaps, and background colour. Filenames include a _toolcomb suffix for sorting, not a visual watermark on the image. ## Related image tools - [Crop Image](https://www.toolcomb.com/crop-image) - Frame faces before cover-fitting into a cell. - [Social Media Resizer](https://www.toolcomb.com/social-media-resizer) - Adapt the collage to story or square crops. - [Blur & Redact](https://www.toolcomb.com/blur-redact-image) - Hide PII in a cell before exporting. - [Image Compressor](https://www.toolcomb.com/online-image-compressor) - Shrink large collage PNGs for email. - [Screenshot Beautifier](https://www.toolcomb.com/screenshot-beautifier) - Polish UI shots before adding them to a grid. - [Rotate & Flip](https://www.toolcomb.com/rotate-flip-image) - Fix orientation before dropping into a cell. ## Plan a Photo Collage Before Downloading For a before-and-after comparison, use the two-cell side-by-side layout and place the images in the order you want people to read them. For three product variations, the three-cell row gives each image its own space; the left-plus-stack layout gives more prominence to the left image. Images fill each cell using a centered crop, so a wide photo in a tall cell may lose content at the sides. There is no per-photo repositioning control on this page. Review every cell and use [Crop Image](https://www.toolcomb.com/crop-image) beforehand if you need a different composition. Fill all cells you intend to use: empty slots are exported as visible placeholders. The collage downloads as one 1200 × 900 PNG. Use [Image Size Checker](https://www.toolcomb.com/image-size-checker) to review the resulting file before sharing. ## Related Tools Discover more free tools that might help with your next task. [Geo Tag Image GPS camera with location stamp, EXIF geotag, and NoteCam-style notes Use Tool](https://www.toolcomb.com/geo-tag-image) [Resize Image Resize by pixels or percent with optional aspect lock Use Tool](https://www.toolcomb.com/resize-image) [Crop Image Crop by coordinates or aspect presets Use Tool](https://www.toolcomb.com/crop-image) [Circle Crop Cut a round profile picture with transparent PNG Use Tool](https://www.toolcomb.com/circle-crop) [Rotate & Flip Image Rotate 90° steps or mirror images horizontally/vertically Use Tool](https://www.toolcomb.com/rotate-flip-image) [Watermark Image Stamp text or a logo with opacity and position control Use Tool](https://www.toolcomb.com/watermark-image) ### Related guides Read the how-to, then come back to this tool when you are ready to run it locally. - [Before/After Image Sliders for Portfolios and Renovations Align two photos, build a drag comparison slider in the browser, and embed results in portfolios - with honest limits on handheld shots.](https://www.toolcomb.com/blog/before-after-image-sliders-for-portfolios) - [Best Free Screenshot and Mockup Tools (No Upload) When to beautify a capture vs drop it in a device frame vs build an OG card - and how ToolComb's Image Editors hub groups mockup tools separately from format converters.](https://www.toolcomb.com/blog/best-free-screenshot-and-mockup-tools) [View All Tools](https://www.toolcomb.com/tools)