I am a first-time user. I am trying to create a mosaic of a flower, using tiles from an image collection that is mostly pictures of kids. I haven't finished photographing the kids yet. Do you have any suggestions/tips for the image collection or the type of flower .jpg I should look for? It is for a girls' school project. I am wanting to print the final mosaic on canvas - size of 24"x24". For example, would it be better to have more close-up shots of the kids or if the kids took up the entire frame; should I try to include some nature photos or would it work with photos of the kids only? Do you have any examples of mosaics made from images of mostly people? Thanks!
-Laura

We have about 2,500 pictures, mostly of our little girl, but in all sorts of weird situations.There's even some photos of a birthday party with another kid covered in cake, there's landscape pictures mixed in with the people pictures, there's even some shots of a kitchen floor for ... well, reasons I don't even remember.

We got it printed at 30x22.5 inches and are really happy with the results. I just used a newer version of AndreaMosaic and better settings on a similarly sized photo (5000 tiles, 4 time repeat, 8 minimum distance, 50 percent color, OK to rotate 90 degrees or mirror) and the result is a surprise present for my dad that looks to be simply incredible. (total size: 145 megapixels, 50mb JPG after a little post-processing).

Anyway, the older photo, with the worse settings we just got online with Zoomify:
http://lilgenghis.blogspot.com/2008/12/ ... tures.html

The more photos you use, the truer to the original picture it will be -- the easier it is to fit square pegs into round holes. Unless you've got some *inappropriate* photos mixed in with the school, I wouldn't worry about the variety of photos in your source folder. Variety can make people look, point and think. And if you're using that many photos, you're not going to want to handpick everything. I have about 3,600 photos in which I've deleted the awful ones -- lens cap on, too blurry, that sorta stuff. The rest stayed, and work fine.

As to your flower: You can get a good source image by searching Flickr -- look for photos with an Attribution only use restriction (you have to say, original photo by Bob Smith, or whatever.) Or look at something like http://www.sxc.hu , a user-compiled stock photo site run out of Hungary.

For a commercial project, I had to find photos from two geographical areas; found five beautiful candidates, and had permission to use 'em commercially, no fee (they just wanted a copy of the final product, a magazine), within 24 hours. All the photos I used came from the two sites I just told you about.

This search can get you free unrestricted flowers:
http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=advanc ... 1=&c2=&t=3

(I looked for the word "bed" in the flowers category because a lot of flower photos had a single flower on a plain background, which wouldn't work well for a mosaic; you need a lot of visual variety. Try also searching for pasture, field, meadow, etc.)

Thanks! So the picture that you linked of the baby and mom only used 2500 pics? And you allowed it to use each 4 times? Perfect. I think we will end up with about that number of pics. It looks great. I may also take some video and digitize frames to add more pics. I guess it depends how the mosaic comes out without doing that.
Thanks also for the flower jpg link. I was thinking that I should use a pic of one flower because I thought I read somewhere that the original photo should be something with large details. Anyway, I guess I will try both and see which comes out better.
Thanks again for your replies!

Well, if you use a photo of one flower, make sure it's tight on that one flower, with a varied background (stems, etc.) -- you don't want a plain studio backdrop.

The picture of my girl and her grandmother was ... I believe 2,500 photos, around 400 DPI. I can't remember the spacing and reuse limits on that one, but I know I fiddled several several times to get it right. The big mistake I made was only limiting the color change to 30 percent. And if I'd allowed the computer to rotate vertical photos, I would've gotten much more variety.

On my second go-around, which I can't quite show you yet, for a similarly sized photo I'm getting 5000 tiles, max 4 uses, 8 square separation minimum, 50 percent, OK to rotate and mirror. The results are -much- better.

Have a little patience and experiment. My computer's relatively new but was $429. It takes about 12 minutes to generate a mosaic, and that's only with one processor. So you can surf the Web, make a cup of coffee, whatever, and experiment.

I started renaming my experiments to reflect what I was changing, e.g., I'd rename mosaic.jpg to 5000tiles-4-8-50percent.jpg. It makes it easier for me to compare and see what worked and what didn't.

Thanks again. One more question: I was doing some calculations and if I want to print a 24"x24" photo, with each tile being at least 3/4" square, I will only need 1024 tiles in the resulting mosaic. You used 5000 tiles in a similarly sized photo. Was each tile very, very small? Could you see the individual tiles OK? Thanks.

Ooh, I owe you a favor. I just e-mailed you a link to my second draft ... and found out that someone, possibly my daughter, maybe me, had put a diagonal line through it. So I just got the order killed, I hope, at the print shop and I'm uploading the re-done file now. Thank you. Let me know if you don't get the link and I'll PM it to you here.

As far as the size: Yes, they're rather small, but clear. The 2,500 tile one I had printed already has photos about the width of a nickel, about two-thirds the height of a time. They're clear, distinct, and just invite people to stare a long time at 'em.

I went with 5,000 the second go-'round for a reason: Most people are going to see it at a distance most often, so the long-distance effect is critical -- if it looks like crap from distance, no one will walk up to it. And anyone walking up to it can still see it.

Now, in the 5,000-tile mosaic I'm getting printed for my dad now (the one I sent you to the link on), a tile appears to be about 0.31" by 0.42". That's 10.8mm x 8.1mm. Measured in pixels, it's 192x143 or thereabouts. That's on par with a cheap webcam's resolution, but the color and clarity are great.

I'm having the prints done at PosterSigns.com. My first one turned out beautiful, but it was actually my second one -- the first print started peeling off the backing within a week, and Eric, the propreitor, redid it at his cost including the ~$18 shipping. Now we've got a keepsake for a long time. I got mine printed on glossy photo paper with a Gator (like a really strong foam backing) backing for about $10 a square foot. If you're doing 25 inches square, the same thing would cost you roughly $40. This way, I can mount it directly, no frame to run over the pictures -- just take some of those sticky picture hooks. I'll double each side; run a length of picture wire between the pairs of hooks; then run a long length of picture wire between the two smaller lengths so the weight is more evenly distributed. This'll be in our family a long time.

It's not a problem if the the original photo have small details, but you will probably loose them. That's all about using larger details. I see good results using images with much contrast and colors.