Finally figured out how to make a collage! (4 pics)

For anyone wanting to know how to make something like that you may find the following useful:

You'll need an image editing program to start with. It doesn't need to be fancy, something basic will do nicely. If you have a Windows computer you can use Window's Paint (you can find it in Start -> Programs -> Accessories).
Alternatively you can use Gimp (free), photoshop (not free) or whatever else you might already have. For the sake of simplicity I'm going to assume we are using Paint.

Launch the program and open up the first image you'd like to use. It will most likely start out rather big, depending on the size of image your camera is capable of (and these days most cameras are pretty good, even the ones in your phones). Since it's too big for the collage you will want to re-size it.

To resize the image go to the tool bar and look for the option to "resize and skew." If you have the ribbon tool bar (lots of icons rather then file menus most programs have) then you want to look for the icon in the "image" group that looks like overlapping boxes.
In the resize and skew screen you want to pick to resize by percentage. Try typing 50 in the Horizontal field and it will fill in the Vertical for you. This will shrink the image by 50% evenly, so you don't distort your picture. The resulting image may still be pretty big, and if so you can shrink it again. keep going until you are happy with it.

Repeat those steps with each image you want to adjust. Save them with a different file name so you don't over-write your source image - you might want that larger copy for something else someday.

When you have each image the size you need, open a second copy of Paint (so that you have 2 running at the same time) and start a new image. You want it at least as big as your finished collage so we are going to need to edit the size to fit your pictures.
To find out how big you need to make it you will need the sizes of your individual images. The copy of Paint that is holding one of your smaller images will tell you the dimensions of that picture in the bar at the bottom of the program. If you have 4 equal size images you can take those numbers and multiply by 2 to get the height and width of your collage. If they are different size you'll need to check each one and write them down and add the largest images height and width numbers together.
To set the size of the new image you started you'll need to go into the program menu (the drop down arrow in the upper left of the ribbon bar) and pick "properties." Input your size and click OK.

Now to bring in your pictures. On the other copy of Paint that has one of your images open you want to select the image and copy it. Easiest thing to do is use your keyboard short-cuts. Ctrl+a to select all and ctrl+c to copy. Click back to your blank collage and use ctrl+v to paste your image. When you do that you can drag it to where you want it to be within the collage. To un-select your image click anywhere else on the blank image space and your copied picture is now placed where it will stay.
Repeat this with each image by opening the others in that first copy of Paint until they are all within your collage space.

Now save your image. You want to do this before you start adding text or trying to do anyhting more with it. Trust me. The text tool in paint is useful, but not fun to edit, so if you make a mistake on your text you'll want to be able to just go back to a clean copy of your collage and start over. Save at each stage of editing when you are happy with what you have done so far. Use different file names on each save (image1, image1b, image1c, image1d...) so you can always go back to an earlier version of your image.
If you have never edited images before you'll just have to take my word for it that this bit of advice is the best thing since sliced bread and has saved you tears, frustration, and a loathing for whoever programmed Paint to not have unlimited undo as an option.

You should now have a collage! If you don't, if instead you have tears, frustration and loath Paint's programmers, feel free to send me a message and I'll try to help.