The Photopainting Process

All our Photopaintings start with collections of snapshots or any kind of images to build the mosaic. A main image is selected, and we use a custom-made, advanced programme to analyse these images and produce a mosaic. Each tile is placed based on how well its hues, saturations and lightness/darknesses match a given portion of the main image. The larger the collection that the programme has to pick from, the more closely the final mosaic will resemble the original. How varied the images are in the collection also makes a difference, but generally speaking, the best results are achieved with at least several thousand pictures.

You may choose the tile shape you would like. We offer square, landscape {horizontal rectangle}, and portrait {vertical rectangle}. Our house collection is horizontally oriented, and most collections work best with landscape tile orientation because that is the most common shape for a photograph. If you choose landscape orientation, any vertical tiles in your collection will be flipped sideways. Likewise, portrait orientation will flip horizontal tiles on their side. Square orientation will simply crop any non-square images. You also have the option for a black line to outline each tile.

By default, your mosaic will not feature every single photograph in your collection. Some of the photos just aren't a good match. The larger your collection is, the smaller the percentage of photos will show up because the programme only picks the "cream of the crop" for the Photopainting. If you prefer, we can produce your Photopainting so that every photograph in your collection is featured. However, such mosaics usually turn out to be lower quality. Another option is simply a montage of your complete collection, without a main photo at all; this works best for very small collections but we can do them at any size.

One way that we can bring out more detail from a smaller collection is by boosting the resolution of the mosaic. This means that we up the number of tile columns. None of the Photopaintings in our Gallery are more than 50 tiles wide; this is usually the maximum needed to create a clear image. However, for smaller collections or pictures with a lot of detail {such as group photos} we can go higher than this to achieve the best results. Obviously, to create a high-resolution mosaic from a small collection means that many of the tiles will be repeated. Remember that the higher the number of tiles, the smaller each tile will be, and unless your print is very large, this might make them hard to see.

We have the capability to tint the tiles towards the source image, and we can do so if you would prefer, but in our opinion, unless done only subtly, the results are less than pleasing. We show an example of this effect here. The mosaic becomes "false" looking, and the tiles no longer independently create the piece. Some of the photographs can barely be seen. Overlaying the main image creates an even worse effect and we do not do this at all.

Another way to maximise results from a limited collection is to duplicate some of the images within the mosaic. This is another thing you will find little or nothing of in our Gallery, since a collection as big as ours doesn't need to repeat images. However, limited use of duplicate tiles can boost the effect for a smaller collection without detracting too much from the overall Photopainting.

Black-and-white mosaics are an option for anyone who wants one. You can either submit an all black-and-white collection to use, or we can transform your colour images into a black-and-white final. We can also create a Photopainting of colour images based on a black-and-white main image.

Photopaintings are the ultimate in photographic mosaics! Contact us now and submit your favourite picture for a FREE preview!