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 can 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 from Pexels and 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 to batch 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 as removing 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.
Open Photoshop. Go to the File menu. Click on Automate and then select Contact Sheet II.
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.
Under Source Images click on Choose and then select the folder where your mosaics are. Under Document, input your canvas size. The canvas size should be proportional to the mosaic size. So if your mosaics are squares, enter a square size and if they are rectangles, enter a rectangular size. Uncheck Flatten All Layers. By unchecking this, every mosaic in the contact sheet will be a separate layer so that you can resize or move them before finalizing. Under Thumbnails, enter the columns and rows count according to the number of images you have. These two multiplied together should equal the total number of mosaic images you have in the folder. Otherwise, you will get blank spaces in your contact sheet. If you’ve got 100 mosaics, you should enter 10 for both. Uncheck Use Auto-Spacing and change both Vertical and Horizontal values to zero. This ensures that there’s minimal space between the mosaics. Click OK on the top-right once you’re done.
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 can 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.
Select the image that you want to reposition. Grab the image’s layer in the Layers window and bring it to the top. Select the Move tool from the toolbar and reposition it. You can also press V on your keyboard to select the Move tool.
If there are white spaces around a mosaic, you can resize the image so that it fills the entire space around it.
Select the image that you want to resize. Unlink it from the layer mask by clicking the chain icon in the Layers window. Press Ctrl/Cmd + T on your keyboard to enable Free Transform and resize the image.
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.
Go to the Edit menu. Select Define Pattern. This will bring up a prompt where you have to enter the name for your pattern. Enter a name for the pattern. Click OK.
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.
Open the main image in Photoshop. Go to the Layer menu. Click on Fill Layer and then select Pattern. A prompt will open. Enter a name for the layer. Change Mode from Normal to Overlay. Click OK. Another prompt will appear. Click the arrow next to the pattern thumbnail and select the mosaic pattern you just made. Adjust Scale and Angle to your liking. Ideally, the scale should not be too large so that the focus stays on the bigger image, and not too small so that the mosaics are distinguishable. Click OK.
Your photo mosaic will now appear! If you’re happy with the results, then that’s it for you. Otherwise, you can 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.
Go to the Adjustments window. If you don’t have the Adjustments window in your Photoshop workspace, go to the Window menu and check Adjustments. Select Brightness/Contrast. Place the Brightness/Contrast layer between the mosaic pattern and the main subject layers. Adjust the brightness and contrast until you get a good balance between the main subject and the mosaics.
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 the Hue/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!
