Microsoft Picture It incompatability with Windows 7 and alternatives for .mix files.

While this is not something I have actually done, I have no doubt that Photoshop Elements and Paint.net could achieve the same result as you describe. Photoshop Elements, for instance, would allow you to select your cutout, save it and then move it back on top of the original one in your collage. You should be able to feather that, but there are things like blending mode which you could probably use instead for some effects. I would have to check that out, which I could do if this is crucial. I find it hard to remember which process has which refinements without opening a photo and trying it - there are so many techniques and my memory is not what it was.. However, anything I want to do I can do.

John Presland

I've never heard of .mix files. I use JPEG, which is the more or less standard format for photos, unless you want to fill a house wall. You can use JPEGs for almost anything. I haven't been able to find any program that uses .mix. Presumably Picture It did. Perhaps it was the format for saving pictures in that program. But you don't need to do that. I used to save Picture it creations as JPEGs, which are extremely versatile.

Both Photoshop Elements and Paint.net save pictures in any of the range of formats it permits, and you can save your collage as any of those. It is then effectively a single picture and you can edit it at any time in either program. i did this with the examples of my own collages which I mentioned. The range of editing possibilities is greater in both programs than in Picture It.

John Presland

35Exactly! Other programs claim to build collages, but nothing does what PictureIt does.

Although programs like Paint Shop Pro had their own editable format (the .psp file that maintains both layers and transparency) that could be later opened and edited, they did not allow for adjustments like changing the degree to which a cut-out was feathered after it had been cut out and and added to the collage. And even Paint Shop Pro was ruined once Corel acquired it.

I will never forgive Microsoft for for failing to make good on their promise to support all Microsoft software in any future versions of Windows. The operating system is only as good as the software that will run under it, and Microsoft really pulled the rug out from under end users who need need a work station as opposed to a game system.

I wonder if I might still be able to help Marianne and others. When I used Picture It it was as a photo editing program and I never looked at the collage features. Were you getting it to produce collages automatically or just using its procedures to devise collages of your own? The two main programs I describe in my "Easy Digital Plant Photography" both enable you to construct your own collages. Photoshop Elements has to be purchased but Paint.net (an entirely different program from Microsoft's Paint) is free.  I found both difficult to use when starting from scratch because the instructions appeared not to be designed for people in that position. That is one reason why I have written the book. I am confident that anyone following the instructions there should be able to create a collage without too much difficulty. 

I have actually used them for only two collages so far, both for book covers. One of them was for my book "Botany Where You Are". I took photographs of 4 local botanical scenes and a local signpost and combined them into a fantasy single picture. If you look up this book on Amazon, you can see it on a reproduction of the front cover. The other is for the cover of my photography book and should be similarly accessible when it comes out - hopefully in a month or so. It has a camera in the bottom right-hand corner from which radiate many photographs which overlap each other. 

John Presland

Hey John,

In answer to your question for Marianne, I wanted to say that no... it does not "auto" create collages.  It does provide pre-formatted templates that can be used or you can devise your own.

Now, my questions for you... 1) Do the programs that you use recognize the .mix format?... and 2) Once you have created and saved your collages, can you go in later and edit them... for instance change the layout of the pictures used in the collage, not just add to it?

If the answer to either of these questions is "no", then what you are using will not replace what we have lost in PictureIt.  I have found several other programs that will allow me to create but NONE of them will allow me to change what I have created once it has been saved and I have to start from scratch.  A perfect example... I did a Christmas family layout using PictureIt.  I swear, I looked at it 100 times before sending it out to be printed so I could send them as gifts (6 copies ordered).  When they arrived, only then did I notice that my sister had a decorative element SMACK DAB in the middle of her forehead!  The page took me about 4 hours to create and get just how I wanted it with pictures and narrative.  I was able to open the .mix file and move the element off of her forehead in 5 seconds because PictureIt files are editable AFTER being saved.  With other programs I have looked into, I would have had to start over from scratch because they save to non-editable formats.

For me... that is my primary complaint with other programs.  Aside from some of the other cool features, the ability to go back to a project days, weeks, months, years later and edit it, update it... reuse it...  that is invaluable and has saved me so much time when I want a new project to be visually connected to a previous one...  I don't have to keep starting from scratch, I just open the old, save under a new name and update/edit as needed. 

~P