Photo mosaic. How to make high quality and beautiful
I want to share with the Habra community my hobby, which, frankly, even brings some profit to me.
I'll start over. 6-7 years ago I was very interested in such a thing as a photo-mosaic. At the very beginning I tried to do it manually. The unmeasured number of layers in Photoshop and a lot of time spent stopped me for three years. But over time, there was only excitement.
And so I began my research on photo mosaic software, which has been tried by a huge number. And in the end the best was chosen.
About the best just will be discussed.
')
In the beginning I will tell you what programs I tried.
AndreaMosaic www.andreaplanet.com/andreamosaic
Metapixel www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/schani/metapixel/examples.html
Imosaic www.imosaic.net/gallery.htm
MOSAnICk www.radivarl.demon.co.uk/nick/mosanick/mosanick.htm
And many more different programs that I don’t even remember now. All the above listed are quite adequate applications that have a place to be. But to create high-quality photo mosaic is not enough.
Somewhere in early 2008, I came across a share-ware aolej Mosaic Creator program. It was just a great find. Now I will tell you how it can be used to create real masterpieces.
The most important is the idea. The idea of ​​a photo mosaic determines the way it was created and the tools that will be used.
I will give a few examples of specific mosaics that I personally did.
One banker made a mosaic of 1.1 m by 1.1 m as a gift, where his portrait was made up of modern banknotes from 160 countries of the world.
The logo of the institute is 3.5 meters by 1.5 meters in size. It is composed of photos of 2000 graduates of the institute.
The logo of the clinic for fertilization of 2000 images of infants up to 1 year.
Options can be many. Turn on your fantasy.
It is necessary to collect a database of photographs or pictures that will be used as mosaic cells. I will describe some of the requirements that I myself derived in an experienced way.
Base picture or photo. The quality of the mosaic is also very dependent on her choice.
The requirements for it are as follows:
If you have prepared all three items you can start creating a mosaic.
Take the application from this site www.aolej.com/mosaic/download.htm
How to install, etc. I will not tell. I think anyone will figure it out.
I will not describe all the functions of the program. And there is a huge amount of them. So just tell you how to make a simple and beautiful mosaic. There are two important points in this mosaic - an interesting idea and a mosaic pattern (which in fact is my favorite pattern).
We believe that the base image is ready. Drop it in the Source Image insert.
Next step. The entire database of mosaic pictures should be in one place, preferably even in one folder. Make Add Dir and add all our pictures or photos to the base this way.
Next you need to adjust the size of the mosaic and the number of cells vertically and horizontally. For this there is a cool tool Size Calculator. In it we set the size (I usually do it in centimeters), and the number of columns and lines. It is best to set the cell size in pixels, based on the aspect ratio of the pictures from your base, and based on this, we already take lines and columns.
In the next tab you need to select a mosaic pattern. Here you can turn on your imagination to the full. I recommend using the pattern editor. I also recommend including the left Background - Source Image. This will fill the gaps between cells (if such are provided in the pattern) of the base picture.
The following insert contains key settings that affect the quality of the mosaic.
Cell recognition quality - for good quality, it is desirable that the value be above 150. The greater the value, the longer the mosaic will be generated and the higher the quality.
Minimal distance between the same image - it is desirable to set the maximum - 9.
Mach cell image repetition - it must be counted. If our mosaic has 1833 cells, and we have 534 images in the database, then the number should be 4 (1833/534 rounded up).
Filling a grid is a tool if you need to make a mosaic of a certain shape (for example, a heart). Or for different areas of the mosaic use different pictures.
In the Cell Enhance insert, you need to set two parameters:
Single Cell colorize - tint level of the whole image. More than 15% should not be used, because the quality of the mosaic drops dramatically.
Detail Cell colorize - the level of coloring of parts of the picture. More than 10% should not be used, because the details of the base image begin to appear.
Further the Masking liner. Here, in order for the edges of our mosaic cell to be smoother, with transitions, we use an alpha mask. There are a lot of different masks in the program, the choice is great, if one is not suitable, you can edit it in Photoshop.
So all the tinctures are made now you can start generating mosaics. Depending on the size of the mosaic, the processor on the computer and the amount of memory, this process can take up to 30 minutes. At the same time, the image-result can even be 1.2 GB in size (I had this; the developers claim that the upper size is limited only by the size of the disk). It should be noted that the mosaic is generated in bmp format without any compression, etc.
Well, click on the green Play and wait.
From experience I will say, to get a quality result, you need at least 10-15 visits with different settings. This is if the base of the pictures is already verified. If the base is new, you will need to catch duplicates.
I spread the mosaic, which I did for an example.
The image is clickable and large (2.4 mb).
One more thing:
The image is clickable and large (2.4 mb).
Some practical advice:
1. If there are not enough photos, try to dilute them with other photos of similar subjects. Just do not use photos of left people. Causes a lot of questions.
2. Goggle Picassa has a face recognition feature. If you have a lot of decent quality group photos in the database, then it can be used to collect faces and fill up the base with unique photos.
Good luck.
I'll start over. 6-7 years ago I was very interested in such a thing as a photo-mosaic. At the very beginning I tried to do it manually. The unmeasured number of layers in Photoshop and a lot of time spent stopped me for three years. But over time, there was only excitement.
And so I began my research on photo mosaic software, which has been tried by a huge number. And in the end the best was chosen.
About the best just will be discussed.
')
Prehistory
In the beginning I will tell you what programs I tried.
AndreaMosaic www.andreaplanet.com/andreamosaic
Metapixel www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/schani/metapixel/examples.html
Imosaic www.imosaic.net/gallery.htm
MOSAnICk www.radivarl.demon.co.uk/nick/mosanick/mosanick.htm
And many more different programs that I don’t even remember now. All the above listed are quite adequate applications that have a place to be. But to create high-quality photo mosaic is not enough.
Somewhere in early 2008, I came across a share-ware aolej Mosaic Creator program. It was just a great find. Now I will tell you how it can be used to create real masterpieces.
Where to begin?
The first
The most important is the idea. The idea of ​​a photo mosaic determines the way it was created and the tools that will be used.
I will give a few examples of specific mosaics that I personally did.
One banker made a mosaic of 1.1 m by 1.1 m as a gift, where his portrait was made up of modern banknotes from 160 countries of the world.
The logo of the institute is 3.5 meters by 1.5 meters in size. It is composed of photos of 2000 graduates of the institute.
The logo of the clinic for fertilization of 2000 images of infants up to 1 year.
Options can be many. Turn on your fantasy.
The second
It is necessary to collect a database of photographs or pictures that will be used as mosaic cells. I will describe some of the requirements that I myself derived in an experienced way.
- Depending on which mosaic pattern you choose, it is necessary that the entire photo library is either vertical or horizontal (I usually use horizontal).
- It is desirable that all the pictures were with approximately the same aspect ratio. Ideally, it is 3x4. But it depends on the pattern.
- If you have a lot of photos of different orientations, you need to cut them under the desired format. It is worth doing manually.
- The quality of the pictures may not be very high. It was experimentally established that the best mosaics are obtained with a size of one element of no more than 3 cm. Considering that a sufficient print resolution used for this type of work is 300 dpi, then the size of the image is 400px. at 300 px. ample.
- Probably the most important thing. It is important that the pictures or photos do not repeat and are not very similar. The worst thing is when there are a couple of clones on the mosaic next to each other.
- The optimal number of photos for a single project is about 2000 thousand. Although it depends on the type of mosaic and size. Less than 500 it turns out very poor quality.
- With portrait photos, you need to tinker more so that the faces are closer to the center of the photo, because when a person’s face in a cell is cut in half, it doesn’t look very beautiful.
Third
Base picture or photo. The quality of the mosaic is also very dependent on her choice.
The requirements for it are as follows:
- Clear lines in the photo are important. If this is a logo or a picture, then you can increase the contrast in Photoshop. If this photo, then it is desirable that it was a type of passport option, but more fun.
- If a picture or logo is made of thin lines, then it is worth reworking it a bit so that the lines are thicker.
- If text is used on the base picture, it is desirable that the text font be without zakrylyuchek. Arial, Verdana and the like are perfect.
- If a portrait photo with any non-uniform background, it is desirable to cut the background.
If you have prepared all three items you can start creating a mosaic.
Creature
Take the application from this site www.aolej.com/mosaic/download.htm
How to install, etc. I will not tell. I think anyone will figure it out.
I will not describe all the functions of the program. And there is a huge amount of them. So just tell you how to make a simple and beautiful mosaic. There are two important points in this mosaic - an interesting idea and a mosaic pattern (which in fact is my favorite pattern).
We believe that the base image is ready. Drop it in the Source Image insert.
Next step. The entire database of mosaic pictures should be in one place, preferably even in one folder. Make Add Dir and add all our pictures or photos to the base this way.
Next you need to adjust the size of the mosaic and the number of cells vertically and horizontally. For this there is a cool tool Size Calculator. In it we set the size (I usually do it in centimeters), and the number of columns and lines. It is best to set the cell size in pixels, based on the aspect ratio of the pictures from your base, and based on this, we already take lines and columns.
In the next tab you need to select a mosaic pattern. Here you can turn on your imagination to the full. I recommend using the pattern editor. I also recommend including the left Background - Source Image. This will fill the gaps between cells (if such are provided in the pattern) of the base picture.
The following insert contains key settings that affect the quality of the mosaic.
Cell recognition quality - for good quality, it is desirable that the value be above 150. The greater the value, the longer the mosaic will be generated and the higher the quality.
Minimal distance between the same image - it is desirable to set the maximum - 9.
Mach cell image repetition - it must be counted. If our mosaic has 1833 cells, and we have 534 images in the database, then the number should be 4 (1833/534 rounded up).
Filling a grid is a tool if you need to make a mosaic of a certain shape (for example, a heart). Or for different areas of the mosaic use different pictures.
In the Cell Enhance insert, you need to set two parameters:
Single Cell colorize - tint level of the whole image. More than 15% should not be used, because the quality of the mosaic drops dramatically.
Detail Cell colorize - the level of coloring of parts of the picture. More than 10% should not be used, because the details of the base image begin to appear.
Further the Masking liner. Here, in order for the edges of our mosaic cell to be smoother, with transitions, we use an alpha mask. There are a lot of different masks in the program, the choice is great, if one is not suitable, you can edit it in Photoshop.
So all the tinctures are made now you can start generating mosaics. Depending on the size of the mosaic, the processor on the computer and the amount of memory, this process can take up to 30 minutes. At the same time, the image-result can even be 1.2 GB in size (I had this; the developers claim that the upper size is limited only by the size of the disk). It should be noted that the mosaic is generated in bmp format without any compression, etc.
Well, click on the green Play and wait.
Result
From experience I will say, to get a quality result, you need at least 10-15 visits with different settings. This is if the base of the pictures is already verified. If the base is new, you will need to catch duplicates.
I spread the mosaic, which I did for an example.
The image is clickable and large (2.4 mb).
One more thing:
The image is clickable and large (2.4 mb).
PS
Some practical advice:
1. If there are not enough photos, try to dilute them with other photos of similar subjects. Just do not use photos of left people. Causes a lot of questions.
2. Goggle Picassa has a face recognition feature. If you have a lot of decent quality group photos in the database, then it can be used to collect faces and fill up the base with unique photos.
Good luck.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/113756/
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