How to Make a Photo Mosaic in Photoshop
Photo mosaics are clever artworks where the image seems to be made up of smaller images resembling mosaics. These small mosaics are images that have their own stories, but put together they tell a bigger story.
Despite what it sounds like, most photo mosaics aren’t created by individually putting small mosaic tiles together. In fact, you could easily make your own creative photo mosaic without any advanced Photoshop skills. How? Read on to learn how you’re able to make a photo mosaic using Photoshop.
How to Create a Photo Mosaic in Photoshop
There’s no better way to learn a Photoshop skill than to try it. In this article, we’re going to take an image fromPexelsand turn it into a photo mosaic in Photoshop. This is done through multiple simple steps.
First, we’re going to prepare our mosaic images and make them all the same size. Then we’re going to create a contact sheet of these mosaics and define that sheet as a pattern. Once we have the mosaic pattern, we’re going to fill the big image with it. Last, we’re going to make some adjustments, and as simple as that, you’ll have your photo mosaic!
1. Prepare the Mosaics
The very first step to creating a photo mosaic in Photoshop is preparing your mosaics. The mosaics are each an individual photo. You can use as many photos as you’d like, but it’s best that the number of photos is a perfect square such as 49 or 100. This way you can create a square contact sheet.
You can also use duplicate photos. As a matter of fact, it’s better if you use duplicate photos here and there so that the pattern in your photo mosaic becomes less obvious.
The final criterion is that your mosaics should be the same size. Again, it is better if your mosaics are squares, just like real mosaics are. You can crop and resize your photos in Photoshop, but since you’re dealing with a lot of photos, it’s easier tobatch resize your photos using free online tools. In this tutorial, we’ve used stock photos from Pexels as mosaics.
Once you’ve got your mosaics ready, place them in a folder and get ready to dirty your hands with Photoshop. If you want to make any adjustments to the photos before getting started, such asremoving unwanted color cast from a subject, now is the time.
2. Create a Contact Sheet
Now with your mosaics at hand, it’s time to create a contact sheet. Contact sheets were originally used by photographers to view all the photos on a film roll as small thumbnails. In Photoshop, a contact sheet fits your particular images on a single canvas.
This will bring up the Contact Sheet II window. Here you’ll have to choose the folder where your mosaics are and specify the details of the contact sheet.
It can take a while for Photoshop to generate the contact sheet depending on the number of photos and the canvas size. Once it’s done, you should be able to see all of your mosaics fit on a single canvas.
3. Arrange the Mosaics
Since you didn’t flatten the layers in the previous step, the mosaics are now in a separate layer each, so you’re able to arrange your mosaics to your liking. If there’s a specific color progression that you have in mind, now is the time to play it.
On the other hand, if you’ve got duplicate photos next to each other in the contact sheet, it’s best to put some space between them by repositioning them. Duplicates can make the overall pattern less distinct, which is what we want, but two duplicates next to each other can attract attention and break the photo mosaic.
If there are white spaces around a mosaic, you’re able to resize the image so that it fills the entire space around it.
4. Define a Pattern
Now that your tiny mosaics are ready and arranged, it’s time to define them as a pattern. We will use this pattern to fill the bigger picture later on.
5. Create a Pattern Fill Layer
With the mosaic pattern ready, we can now work on the bigger picture. We’re going to create a new layer and fill it with the new mosaic pattern.
Your photo mosaic will now appear! If you’re happy with the results, then that’s it for you. Otherwise, you could make some adjustments to improve the look of your photo mosaic. You can also move the pattern layer to better position the mosaics.
6. Make the Final Adjustments
At this point, making the final adjustments is purely a matter of personal preference. Still, you can switch the focus from the mosaics to the main subject using the Brightness/Contrast adjustment.
Brightness and contrast were just a sample of what you could do to improve the final image. For instance, another adjustment you could make is theHue/Saturation adjustment in Photoshop.
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Photo mosaics are a wonderful variation of photo collages where you can put multiple photos next to each other to seemingly create a bigger one.
Through this article, now you know how to create a contact sheet of your photos, define them as a pattern, and fill that pattern on a bigger image to create a photo mosaic. It’s time to put this new-gained knowledge to use and unleash your creativity in Photoshop!
If you want to add a pattern, or any design, to another image in Photoshop, here’s how to make it adhere to the textures and contours of that image.
These are the best free movies I found on Tubi, but there are heaps more for you to search through.
It saves me hours and keeps my sanity intact.
I plugged random USB devices into my phone and was pleasantly surprised by how many actually worked.
Now, I actually finish the books I start.
Your phone is a better editor than you give it credit for.
