Keeping Creativity in the Loupe

A great proportion of people reading this will be doing so in Google Chrome. Yet how many people, save those venturing into Chromebook ownership, have explored the offerings of the applications available, almost exclusively for free, on the Chromestore? If you haven’t yet done so, it is well worth a half hour of your time, and if you can use Google Play or the iOS App Store, then you can use the Chromestore with no trouble.

One gem we have unearthed in the Chromestore is Loupe Collage. This app is a quick, simple but extremely interesting three-step process towards creating shaped photo-collages from your picture galleries.

To begin with, select the images you want to use. If you create an account or sign-in with Google you immediately go beyond the 25 image limit for those who haven’t signed-in. Then, when uploaded, you select the shape in which you want them to be arranged. This can be chosen from the stock shape gallery, or you can create your own using text, your own drawing or structured shapes.

Once this has been done you have a few settings to play around with if you wish to, and that’s it; save it and you get the chance to then share to Google Drive, social media sites, send links via email or embed it into a website. What’s more, the final product is interactive so that when you hover over one of the images in the collage, it enlarges it until the cursor moves.

Loupe Collage can be a very quick but effective and creative tool for both teaching and learning and is well-worth taking the ten minutes it will take from opening the Chromestore to sharing your first collage!!