CollageIt Pro for Windows and Mac -- review and giveaway

There's nothing better than a beautiful photo -- unless it's a group of beautiful photos.  Photo collages are a great way to combine similarly themed photos into one great visual that conveys your message at a single glance. Whether it's for a greeting card or a poster or a blog post or a Facebook update or a living room wall, I find myself creating photo collages almost every day.  For example, I'm doing a review for Dragonfly Designs (they run jewelry making camps, parties and classes), and I took so many photos of their beautiful beads and the beautiful jewelry that the girls made, that collages are the only way to showcase them all!

Until now, I've had to create my photo collages on my iPad, with some photo collage app, or online.  I hadn't really looked at photo collage software for my laptop until PearlMountain software invited me to try their CollageIt Pro software for Windows (it's also available on Mac).  I took the software for a little test drive, and was able to create the beautiful collages you see on this post with no effort whatsoever.

About CollageIt Pro
CollageIt Pro is an automatic and easy to use collage maker on Mac OS X & Windows. It excels with its ease of use and hugely reduces manual work. CollageIt Pro is a TOP 10 Photography APP on App Store! Some features:

• Making collages is as easy as 1-2-3 with only 3 steps, choose template -> add photos & customize -> export collage.
• Various layouts and diverse templates.
• Easily personalize collage by cropping, adjusting photo number, photo space, page margin, rotation, sparse, and so on.
• Save collage as an image file; set as desktop wallpaper; share through Email; or print it out.

The software lets you drag photos from your computer and drop them into a list.  Then you can drag the ones you want onto the template.  You can switch the photos around, or the software can shuffle the photos around for you.  You can also crop each photo to fit it into its frame or have the software select the best fit for the photo.

Your collages are completely customizable: you can vary the page size, the number of photos in  your collage, the spacing between photos, the border thickness and color.

You can even choose a mosaic-style layout, with your photos tilted randomly so they look like prints haphazardly pinned onto a message board!

Despite all the customization options, a few that I really want are lacking: the ability to customize the photo sizes inside the layout (they are generated by the software, so for example I can't seem to create a collage with all-square photos!).  Also, I can't flip or rotate the photos, and I can't adjust the tilt of the photos in the mosaic layout about.  These are all features that come with the free CollageIt app for the iPhone, iPad and iPad touch -- but the tradeoff is that the CollageIt app for iOs can only create collages for up to 9 photos, while the CollageIt software for Windows and Mac can accommodate up to 200 photos.

There is also a free version of CollageIt for Windows and Mac; the difference between the two is that the Free version generates your collages with copyright watermarks. That alone is a great reason to splurge on the Pro version ($19 for a personal license), but in addition, the Pro version lets you crop your photos and export your collages in larger sized formats.


Win free codes for CollageIt Pro 
CollageIt Pro has 20 license codes to give away -- 12 for Windows and 8 for Mac -- to 20 lucky Bonggamom Finds readers! All software includes lifetime support.

To enter, please leave a comment with your email address and let me know whether you are in the drawing for a Windows version or the Mac version.  That's it!  No location restrictions this time.  I'll draw 20 winners on May 14, 2013.  Good luck!

Disclosure: CollageIt provided a code for me to download and review the app, as well as codes for giveaway. Product information (in italics) was provided by PearlMountainThe views and opinions expressed here are my own.
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