Comparative test of photo mosaic applications


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This test hardly can be completly independant - but I try as hard as I could

Download source image of Charlie Chaplin Example of video tapes cover gallery 		I render this picture of Charlie Chaplin using tile library of video cassete covers with five photo mosaic application.
I try render photo mosaic with big enough tiles to see it clear. As far as I understand you must not use more than 1000 tile for A4 picture. Tiles are not square - they have height/width ratio 13 to 7 so if program supports nonsquare tiles I render picture 38 tiles widht to 25 tiles height (38x25=950). Library consist of 951 different video cassete cover this is not much - so I allow repetition (if program can adjust repetition freuency - I set to repeat every 6th tile)
High repetition tiles image No repetition tiles at all Tyler. This freeware program can operate only square tiles. It has two modes - repeat tiles as many as it want (left picture) and no repetition at all (right one). Those pictures consist of 36x28=1008 tiles. It is very fast and simple program - it render picture within 1 or 2 minutes. It is a fun to play with (but not more)
Most accurate render with no color correcion Most accurate render with color correcion Mosaic magic. This shareware program can operate only square tiles. If image non square - it will be shrink. Also I don't quite understand how to set tile resolution explictly - so I could only made 30x40=1200 tiles picture. It is almost as fast as Tyler - it create both pictures in a couple of minutes. Picture can be a little enchanced with color correction setting.
Most accurate render with no color correcion in version 1.4 Render in version 1.5 Mosaic creator. Real interesting shareware photo mosaic program. As author say - Unique for Mosaic Creator are nonrectangular cell shapes - and seems it's true - but I'd like to test ability to create simple rectangular photo mosaic. You can see what could made this program. All setings was set as recommended by program developer. Right picture rendered by program developer himself using not publised on moment of test version of "Mosaic creator 1.5" (both images 38x25=950 tiles)
Basic render (render time less than 5 minutes) Most advanced render without span (render time about 2 hours) Most advanced render with span (render time more than 2 hours) Photo tiler. Another interesting shareware photo mosaic program. It has many unique image matching options. First image was render with basic options in a 5 minutes. Second with all settings set to most accurate image matching. (both images 38x25=950 tiles with every 6th tile could be repeated). Third mosaic was render using image span technique, it has 39x25=950 tiles and was created more than 2 hours. All images have no color correction.
Simple render with matrix 2x2 (about 10 minutes) Normal render with matrix 6x6 (less then 30 minutes) ...And winner is...

Mazaika. (Don't you think that I'll publish this test if my own Mazaika fails?). Left picture was rendered in a 10 minutes using only 2x2 matrix image match. Right one was made in 30 minures using 6x6 matrix. (both images 38x25=950 tiles with every 6th tile could be repeated). Both images have no color correction and was not enchanced manually.
After test was complete - I understand that for me there are only two real photo mosaic program that can make good looking accurate pictures out of limited tile collection. There was no tricks and cheats in this test. You can download this video covers library and source image I use in test and try do it yourself.
It is interesting to note that all photo mosaic program except Mazaika allow change tile colors and transparency. Mazaika is only one application that don't allow change colors but allow change whole tile manually i.e. if you don't like some single tile you could change it to one of ten candidate images choosed out of database.