Made a photomosaic today from the photos I have made so far in my 365. It's a pretty neat trick these mosaics, and I have even given some as a present for special occasions to people in print and framed. So much to look at in a mosaic like this.
It's quite easy to make them actually (once you know the trick ;-) ). I am using a free bit of software called PhotoMedley from http://www.photility.com.
Step 1
Basically, you select a target image, an image you want to use as the basis for your mosaic. The software will try to fit each tile in the photo with one from your archive that fits best.
Step 2
Then you select a folder (or multiple) with photos that may be used for the photomosaic. If you are going to be using a LOT of photos, it's best to make a copy of them first, and use something like Irfanview to reduce their size to something like 400x300. If you use these scaled down images, that will greatly enhance the speed. There is also a built in feature to create an image library. This is very good as well and does the same thing, but with less control.
Step 3
Setting your mosaic settings. Like, in how many separate images should your mosaic be created. What size should it come out like. If you hover over any of the items you will get a good description of what it does.
You don't need to pay any attention to these fields, except for the first two. The rest are advanced settings. They will increase the quality of your mosaic, but even with them as they are, the result should be pretty nice as well. Try the easy way first, then start tweaking them and playing around with the settings.
Step 4
Is the easiest one, but takes the most time. Hit Start!. Your computer will now do some heavy duty powerlifting and will match all available images to sections of the target photo. This may take a moment, quite a moment :-) The image above had some really advanced settings, requiring more time ofcourse, and took 45 minutes to render.
When you are happy with the created preview, hit Save to make the actual full-size image. This will not take as long, as PhotoMedley already knows where to place each photo.
I hope you enjoyed this small guide to Mosaics. If you make any nice ones, be sure to post them in this topic, I'd love to see your results! (Copy the share link from your 365 photo and paste it in your forum message)
Thanks so much for this Raymond!!! I just photographed a wedding for a friend last weekend, and I'm hoping I can create one of these using her wedding photos and give it as a gift!!
I tried this on a picture of Charlie... but it did NOT look like Charlie when it was finished lol maybe I need more pictures and to make the amount in the image greater....
Making the amount of images used greater is often a good place to start if you feel it's not close enough to what you want to get. I have found setting Tile Tweaks to Portions also helps a lot, it will then not only use the entire image, but if a small piece of it fits better, it will just use that bit. It gives the program a lot more options to combine the mosaic.
Keep on trying, my image took 5 attempts as well before I was happy with it, and I know my way around these programs ;-)
Hi Josh, Matt, very nice mosaics, very well executed and if a picture is worth a 1000 words, these are complete books!
And Josh, I agree, next to PhotoMedley, Andrea Mosaic is just as good a tool and also free. When I was playing with them (tried both), I found I preferred PhotoMedley. But both have some very neat tricks in them to try and use, and it's good that you mention this alternative as well, thanks.
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Maybe I'll share my picture if it turns out lol :)
Keep on trying, my image took 5 attempts as well before I was happy with it, and I know my way around these programs ;-)
When created a mosaic for my 2,000th photo-a-day.
Even with 2,000 images to work with I had to used a few repeats. I think after I hit 4 or 5k, I'll be able to get a nice one with no repeats.
And Josh, I agree, next to PhotoMedley, Andrea Mosaic is just as good a tool and also free. When I was playing with them (tried both), I found I preferred PhotoMedley. But both have some very neat tricks in them to try and use, and it's good that you mention this alternative as well, thanks.