How to Use AI Collage in PhotoDirector

PhotoDirector's AI Collage takes the fiddly part out of making a collage: you bring the photos, it handles the layout, the background, and the title across the top. There are two ways in, a ready-made template or a description you write yourself, and the second is the one to reach for when the collage has to match something you already have.

AI Collage sits with the rest of PhotoDirector's generation tools, so it's a couple of clicks from the home screen. Open PhotoDirector and click the AI Collage card under What's New, or take the long way round through Guided & GenAI, click AI Creativity in the rail, and pick AI Collage under Generation Tools. Both routes land on the same welcome screen, where a three-step preview shows you what's coming. Click Start Now and you're in.

This is the one real decision in the whole flow, and it sets how much say you get over the look. Step 1 in the panel offers two routes: choose a ready-made Template, or switch to Describe your collage design and write your own brief. Neither one locks you in, since you can send another version through later, so it's worth trying both on the same set of photos.

Leave Template selected and browse the gallery on the right. The designs run from clean photo strips and scrapbook boards to magazine spreads, pinboards, and film-roll frames, so scroll a little before you settle. Click one and it appears in the preview on the left, which is your confirmation that it's the one in play. Templates take 2 to 4 photos.

Want something the gallery doesn't have? Select Describe your collage design and type what you're after. Be specific about mood, layout, and finish, not just the subject: we asked for “aesthetic photo collage of a man walking in green mountains, a creek running through, layered composition, torn paper edges, magazine cutout style, dreamy atmosphere” and got a torn-paper mountain scene with a magazine-style title we never asked for by name. You have 800 characters to work with, and this route takes 2 to 5 photos.

Now feed it the photos. Under Step 2, drag your images into the drop area or click it to browse. The counter beside the label tells you where you stand, and Generate stays grayed out until you've hit the minimum, so there's no guessing whether you've added enough. Photos of people work particularly well. In ours the lead shot was cut out and blended straight into the background, and the rest were dropped into frames on top of it.

Click Generate and PhotoDirector takes it from there. A notice in the top right confirms your collage is generating, and it runs in the background, so you can carry on with something else instead of watching the panel. The button switches to Re-generate, which is what you click if you tweak the description or swap a photo and want another version. When it's finished, the notice changes to Collage is ready!

Click View your collage to open My Creations, where every collage you generate is kept, so nothing is lost if you walk away mid-run. Click the one you want and it opens full size with the prompt and the source photos listed beside it, which is handy when you're comparing two versions of the same brief. Give it a proper look, then click Download to save it.