Vertical icons between subfloats

Question

Hi what I'm trying to do is having icons e.g. arrows between a subfloat images that displays some kind of a "process" between the images.

This is my code so far:

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{subfig}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure} [h]
  \subfloat[text 1]{
     \includegraphics[width=0.28\textwidth]
     {example-image-a}}
      \hfil
  \subfloat[text 2]{
     \includegraphics[width=0.28\textwidth]
     {example-image-b}}
      \hfil
  \subfloat[text 3]{
     \includegraphics[width=0.28\textwidth]
     {example-image-c}}

  \subfloat[text 4]{
     \includegraphics[width=0.28\textwidth]
     {example-image}}
      \hfil
  \subfloat[text 5]{
     \includegraphics[width=0.28\textwidth]
     {example-image}}
      \hfil
  \subfloat[text 6]{
     \includegraphics[width=0.28\textwidth]
     {example-image}}

  \captionof{figure}[]{long text}
  \label{fig:merge}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

Which gives me this:

---

What I want to have:

Is there a way of doing it?

Answer 1

Like this?

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage{pifont}
\usepackage[svgnames, x11names]{xcolor}
\usepackage{graphicx
}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{subfig}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\newcommand\bigdownArrow{\color{Tomato2}\rotatebox[origin=c]{-90}{\scalebox{2.4}[3.6]{\ding{225}}}}
\newcommand\bigupArrow{\color{Tomato2}\rotatebox[origin=c]{90}{\scalebox{2.4}[3.6]{\ding{225}}}}
\begin{document}

\begin{figure} [h]
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{@{}*{3}{>{\centering\arraybackslash}X}@{}}
  \subfloat[text 1]{
     \includegraphics[width=0.28\textwidth]
     {example-image-a}}
      &
  \subfloat[text 2]{
     \includegraphics[width=0.28\textwidth]
     {example-image-b}}
       &
  \subfloat[text 3]{
     \includegraphics[width=0.28\textwidth]
     {example-image-c}}
     \\
\bigdownArrow & \bigdownArrow & \bigupArrow
 \\[-1ex]
  \subfloat[text 4]{
     \includegraphics[width=0.28\textwidth]
     {example-image}}
       &
  \subfloat[text 5]{
     \includegraphics[width=0.28\textwidth]
     {example-image}}
      &
  \subfloat[text 6]{
     \includegraphics[width=0.28\textwidth]
     {example-image}}
\end{tabularx}
  \captionof{figure}[]{long text}
  \label{fig:merge}
\end{figure}

\end{document}