Photo Mosaic software???

pumpdog · #1 01-17-2009, 12:32 AM

I've come across a few websites offering software to make photo mosaics but I am somewhat sceptical. Has anyone out there made mosaics or used software to do so?

Dennis_Vied · #2 01-17-2009, 01:09 PM

I have used Panavue Image Assembler and Photoshop CS3 to stitch images. Haven't tried any others. Panavue will stitch both mosaics, panoramas and VR movies.

Recently I have been manually stitching aerial survey images with CS3, simply because they were not shot with parameters which would make the software stitching feasible. Have just made some improvements to the photo mechanisms which may improve that aspect.

Noel_Carboni · #3 01-17-2009, 10:06 PM

Before spending any money on another program, try File - Automate - PhotoMerge in Photoshop CS3. It's very, very good.

-Noel

GreggVicik · #4 01-18-2009, 09:32 AM

If you have the time to work with it, you may want to try PTAssembler. It is a very powerful software but may not be quite as userfriendly as some of the others. There is also Hugin, AutoPano Pro and PTgui. If you Google any of these names, the sites will come up. I think PTAssembler is free. I have used it in the past and once I got past the learning curve, it was unreal in what it could do.

pumpdog · #5 01-18-2009, 10:32 PM

Im sorry, I may have the name wrong. Photo mosaic being a picture made of of a bunch of tiny thumbnails. Thanks for the post.

DougAxford · #6 01-19-2009, 01:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pumpdog

Im sorry, I may have the name wrong. Photo mosaic being a picture made of of a bunch of tiny thumbnails. Thanks for the post.

That's what I guessed but didn't reply cause I thout I was wrong. I've used a few many years ago: Photo Montage by ArcSoft and either Picture Publisher or Pagemaker (can't remember which one did it). My CD is from 1998. I would ftp it to you - but It's 500 MB is a bit much for my WiMax.

We did a few high school yearbook inside covers using it. Select 1,500 student photos and it merges them into one large photo using your selected image. It actually worked well but in our case, all photos then were with a blue background (not the best) and the software forced you add their default thumbnails which I didn't want. It also was pretty amateur in how you chose output - but back then, that was normal. Many people definitely saw the master image come through and others can't get it, which was a good thing.

I'm sure the software has come a long way since then. It seems to me that this capability is in a few offerings now.

I've seen other school photographers offer it with the Pope or the flag as the master image. In those cases they merged 2 images in PS and lowered the opacity to blend them together rather than strictly have the software make the placement to create the master.

Anything else?

Dennis_Vied · #7 01-19-2009, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pumpdog

Im sorry, I may have the name wrong. Photo mosaic being a picture made of of a bunch of tiny thumbnails. Thanks for the post.

I know what you mean now. You're talking about the process of applying many small pictures to make an overall image composed of the small pictures. I don't know what they call that either. There's gotta be a word for it.

I'd like to know what software will do that also.