I’ve been intrigued by photo mosaics ever since I saw a poster-sized picture of Snoopy hanging in a St. Paul bookstore and realized it was actually an arrangement of thousands of tiny tile photos. Ever since then I have wanted to create a photo mosaic of my own.
That was more than five years ago and only now have I gotten around to making my dream a reality. At first I tried to make a photo mosaic on my own. There are hundreds of applications that allow you to do so on your own for free on Macs or PCs. (Click here for some great step-by-step directions on how you can take an ordinary image and make it into an amazing photo mosaic.) A word of warning: if you do not have the patience to fiddle with configuration and color coding, and you don’t have hundreds of digital shots to spare (you could use images from the Internet to help fill in the gaps) you might not want to attempt this project on your own.
Long story short I simply didn’t have adequate time to dedicate to this project (what’s more, I simply couldn’t get the finished project to look half way decent) so I enlisted the help of a company that specializes in creating incredible customized photo mosaic.
Note: Since I haven’t paid for the final product (it’s a Mother’s Day gift for my mom and I’ve only seen the digital preview) I don’t feel comfortable plugging a specific company, which is why I will not be revealing the name of the site I have been working with.
There are hundreds of companies that design photo mosaics from your own picture collection and print them in the size you choose. Most recommend that you have at least 20 pictures to include in your photo mosaic. However, the more photos you submit (I would suggest using up to a few hundred) the better the results. For example, my photo mosaic main image features my daughter sitting on the beach. I have taken more than 10,000 images of her since she was born and from those I chose about 300 to be used in the photo mosaic. (Did I mention creating photo mosaics is a time consuming task?)
Most companies are more than happy to help customers who don’t have enough pictures to submit for a photo mosaic. They simply supplement with their own stock photos. The maximum number of photos you can submit depends on the size of your mosaic. For example, the company I am working with suggests the following: for an 8×10 the maximum amount of photos is 320; for an 11×14 the maximum is 440; for a 12×18 the maximum is 650; for a 16×20 the maximum is 750; and for a 20×30 the maximum is 900. Again, you don’t need to submit the maximum amount. I was told that most users submit only 50 photos and the end result is not compromised. I personally submitted more because I figured doing so would mean I was getting more bang for my buck.
As for choosing which shot you want for your photo mosaic the company recommends choosing a simple image that has only one or two subjects and features a large contrast between the background and the primary subject.
Once I pay for my photo mosaic I will post the results in this blog. I am hoping for the best. We’ll see what happens.
Have you tried creating a photo mosaic on your own? Were you happy with the end product?
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