Skip repetitive date and title UPDATED 23 NOVEMBER 2008

PollyTiles: Art, Technology, Vision 

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Photo Mosaics

Our unique photo mosaics are created from your own collection of photographs.

The more pictures you can provide the better the definition of the finished mosaic - as a rule of thumb we'd like around 1,000 pictures to work into a 1 metre square image.

However, if you can’t provide that many there are ways we can artifically increase the number using our sophisticated software to create new pictures from existing images.

How does it work?

Firstly an appropriate base image is chosen for the "big" picture. This image is then sized and divided into small cells - the optimal number of cells in the finished mosaic depends on the chosen substrate we'll be printing onto (canvas, photographic paper, acrylic...), the size and quality of the pictures provided, and the finished size of the artwork.

Next we process the photographs provided into a catalogue of images. The software then divides the base image into its cells and trawls the catalogue to find the best match of colours, texture and shading to fit each one.

It's at this stage a lovely human being takes over and, casting an artistic eye over the computer's creation, examines each cell to ensure the image is appropriate (no heads chopped off for instance) and moves the images around to maximise their use. We then take out any images that look out of place, and replace them by eye from the remaining catalogue. Sometimes it's better to use an image more than once but we avoid this where possible, and we ask the customer to check the finished piece carefully before the finished article goes to print. Click here to see some examples!

Or click and drag on this picture to explore the mosaic of Holly interactively (how cool is that?!) - use the mouse wheel to zoom back out again - if you don't already have the Silverlight player a link will appear to help you...

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