How-To Tuesday: Make a Basic Collage in Photoshop

Chris asks me How to Make a Collage in Photoshop on a semi-regular basis, and though she wrote it down last time I told her, which was a while ago now, I figured I would post it here for anyone else who might be interested.
Step 1. Decide if you want a basic coloured background (1a) or a picture as your background (1b).
1a. Coloured Background
If you want a coloured background you can do one two things (i and ii):
i. After opening Photoshop, create a new image. Input the dimensions you want the final collage to be (the size of one of your photos might be a good place to start) and select the background colour desired, see below. Hit OK. You now have a blank canvas to start with. Proceed to Step 2.

ii. Another way to do this is to open any image in Photoshop. Then hit CTRL and the A key to select everything in the image. With the selection tool active (this may be the rectangular, elliptical, single row or single column marquee tool), right click the image and select Layer Via Cut, see below. You now have Layer 1 as the original photo and the background layer as a blank colour, see below (whatever your background colour was at the time). Proceed to Step 2.1b. If you would rather have an image as your background, open the image in Photoshop and then proceed to Step 2.

If you decided to use Either Step 1.a.ii or Steb 1.b then save your collage file with a new filename now as to not alter the original file used. You will likely have to save it as a Photoshop file (see end of post for description and helpful images).

Step 2. Start placing your collage images.
Open the image you want to place into your collage, make sure to keep your collage file open. Either hit CTRL and the A key to select the entire image, or using the selection tool, select only the part of the image you want in your collage. Hit CTRL and the C key to copy the selection then go back the collage file and hit CTRL and the V key to paste the image into the file. It will come in as a new layer, see below. You can move each layer around by selecting it (the currently selected layer is highlighted blue - layer 1 is selected above) and using the Move Tool, see below. You can resize the image by transforming hit, hitting CTRL and the T key will allow you to do this. Once you have resized it how you would like it, press Enter to accept the transformation. Proceed to Step 3.

Step 3. Adding the remaining images.
Repeat Step 2 with each image you want to use in your collage. Make sure to exit each photo after you are done copying them into your collage to keep your computer running efficiently. Also, remember not to save any changes made to the photos that might have been made in the process. Proceed to Step 4.

Step 4. Saving the collage.
When you save the image you get the option of what file you would like to save it as. If you intend on continuing work on the collage, you should save it first as a Photoshop file, see below. This will save all the layers and any other techniques you have used so that you can alter them later on.Once you want the image to be used in other programs, save it as a JPEG image, see below.

General Notes
Save your collage file on a regular basis to ensure you don't lose it at any time during the process.