Tammy Wise has been creating mosaic art for over 8 years. She has been published in major glass magazines and has done mosaic commission work for businesses. Tammy currently owns her own mosaic business in Owasso, Oklahoma. Tile Shack Mosaic Supplies ship

By : A. Shaham

O.K. you saw a photo mosaic and you love this great idea and wish to give such a photo as a gift. What should you do next and how can you create such a photo that would not miss the point?

Photomosaic is an art that is gaining popularity in recent years. It has several forms and synonyms such as photomontage or phototiling. The techniques of forming this art are different and accordingly the final result. There is a technique that divides the master photo to smaller sections and picks the tiling photos according to the resemblance to each section. This technique usually uses a large number of tiling photos to find the best match to each section. The result might be appealing to the eye but I do find it lacking the personalization that I do expect from such an art. Especially when it is intended as a gift, due to the large number of cell photos required it might be difficult to present a subject

Another technique apply larger section of the master photo and embed or overlay the tiling photos so the master photo is more pronounce while viewed from a distance, while the details of each photo tile can be viewed in closer inspection of the photo.

In a third technique the tiling photos serve as the pixels of the master photo. In this technique each tiling photo is tinted to the appropriate hue and intensity of the matching pixel of the master photo and replaces it.

With the last two techniques above it is easier to set a subject to the photo and get the personalization to the photo. Here are couple examples of a subject you can get with these techniques.

1) Assume you want to give such a photo to a friend of yours which is a freak of antic cars. You can pick photos of appropriate cars and use these as cell photos while creating your friend portrait. This way you get the personalization of the photo. It is not just a portrait. It has a deeper meaning in it.

2) You have your own small business. You can make a photo with the logo of your business made of photos of your employees/partners/customers/vendors who ever you want to give the feeling they are part of this operation to represent the business is made of the people in the organization and related to it.

You need to think of photo mosaic like an article, it has its title that can be seen from a distance and it has its detailed story that can be viewed in a close inspection, accordingly you can pick the proper photos for each photo mosaic you want to make. To create the photo mosaic you can either download software and run it yourself, or get it done for you in a site that gives this service such as www.TweakPic.com