Shape Collage can be used to create various pre-configured sahpes like hearts, rectangles or circles but also custom shapes like text entered by the user or a custom drawing which can be created from within the photo collage software easily. Some of the shapes require do obviously require more photos than others. Take for example a circle and the letters Ghacks.

Additional options include the customization of the background which can be a solid background color, transparent or a selected photo. It is furthermore possible to create a border around the photo collage, select a size for the final image, pick a photo size, select the number of photos that should be used and define the photo spacing.

Shape Collage is a very sophisticated easy to use software program to create photo collages. It comes with all the features expected and provides access to some interesting unique features that most other photo collage applications are not offering.

The first thing that struck me was that this picture was actually a shockwave file. I saw the picture and thought, well, nice but were is the awesomeness ? That is when I realized that you can zoom in and out of the picture to see more pictures that are connected to the first. Take a look at the pictures (click for full size) or head right to the website.

I’m going to write about three computer programs / scripts that are going to help you create a great Christmas gift. I think that those methods work best for presents for people that you really care about: close relatives, partners and children for example. All you need besides those programs is some time, a printer and a picture or video of something that the recipient likes. Let us start..

• Create a Poster from an Image

You only need a picture that would make a great poster. Download PosteRazor and run it. Select the picture on your computer, specify the output size and a pdf file will be created that contains a number of pages that are the poster. Print those pages and you have a great personal gift. Use large images for best results. Available for Windows, Mac and as source code.

• Create huge rasterized images from any picture

PosteRazor is cute but has limitations. If you want huge, and I mean huge, outputs that can decorate a wall in complete width you need to use the online script Rasterbator. The output looks really incredible, please note that it is up to you if you want to define borders in the final picture. You may also download an offline version which does not have the size and resolution limitations of the online script.

• Create a Flipbook

Flipbooks are great gifts especially for children (and women). All you need is Flipbook Printer created by my friend mouser from donationcoder. You obviously need a movie for this to work. Just load the movie, define start and end and let the program do the rest. All that is left to do is to print the results and join the results together.

I would love to hear about your ideas and other programs or scripts that do something similar. So, if you know something please let me know.