• Although it may seem that when you press down on your camera’s shutter, the photo result is your final product, there’s quite a bit you can do to your images after the photos are taken. Similar to the crafting technique of collage, photomontage lets you mix up your photos, cutting and pasting parts of one image onto another and creating entirely different and unlikely designs. With photomontage, you can produce images you’d never be able to capture on actual film.
  
  

Talking Heads

• The technique of photomontage became popular with the Victorians, who enjoyed cutting and pasting heads from one photo onto another different image, according to the Cut and Paste website. You can mirror this technique to produce amusing images of your family and friends. Create two piles of photos, one with close up head shot images and one with photos of animals, buildings or abstract art, then cut and paste peoples’ heads onto the other images. Part of the simplicity of photomontage is that there’s no wrong way to complete a photomontage; it doesn’t matter if your friend's head is out of proportion to the cat’s body you’re placing it on--in fact, a bit of abstract art or absurdity in the resulting images may add to the effect of the photomontage.
  
  

Perspective

• If you ever wanted to be a big fish in a little pond, photomontage may be your chance. With this technique, you can cut out a close up full-body shot of yourself and paste it into a far away photo of a large structure such as the Eiffel Tower or Statue of Liberty. Due to the strange perspective, you’ll dwarf the normally immense landmarks. You can play with perspective in other ways. Photos of your children from different distances can be placed next to each other, making your toddler look just as tall or taller than your adult child.
  
  

Background

• A photomontage project is an ideal way to play with entering into new territories. For example, a souvenir photo of the Sphinx in Egypt may be quickly “montaged” when you place a posed photo of yourself on top of it, as if you’re riding it into the Egyptian sanded deserts. There’s also the option to pose people deliberately and switch their backgrounds; for example, you can dress up your family in their thickest, warmest winter coats and gear, then cut out the images and place them on a photo background of a desert island, beach or even under water. Your favorite pet can find its way into a photo of your child’s classroom or even the Senate floor with a few snips from a couple of photographs.