Need help making a photo mosaic

[HowardE]

Does anyone know some good software for making a photo mosaic map? I wanted to map out the reef in front of my apartment, and thought it would be cool to make a photo mosaic. Does anyone out there have any experience with this, maybe some tips and techniques, and software available for aiding in this?

Thanks

 

[Deefstes]

I'm not sure I understand the question. Are you planning on taking numerous pictures of the reef and then stitch them together to form one big picture of the entire reef? Sound like a daring project but it would be superb if you could pull it off. I use hugin to stitch photo's into panoramas and it works quite well and without too much user intervention. I'm pretty sure if you could take your pictures of the reef in such a way that they line up properly, hugin should have no problem stitching them all together.

 

[jonix]

i used to play around with photoshop doing photo mosaics of family pics. not sure though if this is what you're referring to...

(mosaic seen on the net)

if it is, i used photoshop's picture package to create the mosaic then blended (overlay) it with the main image.

 

[HowardE]

Photoshop could work... I'm looking to make something like the attached file.

Do you think it would be easier to shoot video continuously, and capture frames from video, or shoot stills, and work with the stills?

 

[Deefstes]

Photoshop could work... I'm looking to make something like the attached file.

Do you think it would be easier to shoot video continuously, and capture frames from video, or shoot stills, and work with the stills?

That's what I was thinking and hugin would work beautifully for that. I'm not very familiar with Photoshop (I like free stuff) but I'm sure you'd be able to stitch it all together with photoshop as well.

I would think that stills would work better as they'd be of higher quality. Of course it depends on what camera you'll be using but video grabs often show motion blur, especially if you were panning. Also, if your video camera captures interlaced video it means that any one picture will only have 50% of the actual image.

 

[D_B]

Or do you mean software to be able to connect a bunch of separate photos into one panarama ?

I had one but can not remember the name, I did a search and found several, this is one that came up that's free to try ... Photo editing software: FirmTools PanoramaComposer full description, screenshot and download

 

[Deefstes]

Or do you mean software to be able to connect a bunch of separate photos into one panarama ?

I had one but can not remember the name, I did a search and found several, this is one that came up that's free to try ... Photo editing software: FirmTools PanoramaComposer full description, screenshot and download

Yeah, that's what Hugin does, only Hugin is free and it can stitch spherical panoramas or flat panoramas in two dimensions. There are many panorama stitching utilities out there and I don't know if Hugin is the best but it certainly is a good one and it's free. Whatever you get, just make sure it can stitch in more than one dimension, especially for a project like this.

 

[jonix]

That's what I was thinking and hugin would work beautifully for that. I'm not very familiar with Photoshop (I like free stuff) but I'm sure you'd be able to stitch it all together with photoshop as well.

I would think that stills would work better as they'd be of higher quality. Of course it depends on what camera you'll be using but video grabs often show motion blur, especially if you were panning. Also, if your video camera captures interlaced video it means that any one picture will only have 50% of the actual image.

+1 on hugin that would work. it'll probably be easier on hugin than photoshop.

 

[pummkin]

You can check out the list of photo mosaic software for your operating system here:- Photo Mosaic Software Information for your Digital Photos

 

[Deefstes]

Have you seen this post? It won't tell you how to do it but if i understand correctly this is what you're trying to achieve. Pretty impressive.

I see it is also called a mosaic by the author but I don't really think it is a true mosaic. That is what I would call a composite. A Mosaic, at least the way I always understood it, would be an image constructed out of smaller and unrelated images or elements (such as a tile mosaic or a stained glass window). The image posted above by jonix would be a good example.

PS - Your post prompted me to play around a bit with creating a photo mosaic and I posted my results in the Member's Photo Gallery thread.