Orlovia
As a reminder of our wonderful time together with Dogue de Bordeaux Oscar, I created a photo mosaic. I could not have imagined that this video would go around the world and that our Osi has now most likely caused a smile in every country in the world. But our “Bordosel” was a very special dog in life, who was always good for a surprise and unique moments and probably still is now…
Photo Mosaic
The technique of mosaic pictures is quickly explained. You take a lot of individual images and put them together in such a way that a new, large overall picture emerges. From a distance, the collage looks like a normal photo. But if you get closer, you can see that the photo mosaic consists of many individual images. In our case, the images are pin-sharp. How many pictures does this require? The selected provider writes that you can already create a photo mosaic with 50 images, but we used over 950 images. If I added up the rows correctly, our overall picture consists of over 5,000 individual images. This means that many images are repeated, but this is not tragic. When passing by, you only ever catch a glimpse of small excerpts.
Of course, photo mosaics are not only interesting for animal lovers. Other beautiful moments can also be preserved, such as the wedding, the first years of your own children, from birth to school enrollment, or the funniest moments of a birthday party. Anything that pleases is allowed. There are also hardly any limits to the choice of color. You can usually choose in advance whether the image is to be created entirely in color, in black and white, or a mixture of black and white and color. Knowledge of image processing is not necessary.
Creating a Photo Mosaic – How Does it Work?
If you are not an artist like me, you can use existing software or service providers. And then it gets really easy. First of all, you upload your main motif and your individual images, in the next step you choose which material and in what size the mosaic should be created, and then it’s time to wait. The provider reveals how many images are required. For ours, the recommendation was at least 50 images. The photos are then transmitted to the provider in encrypted form and arranged into a mosaic using the software and a final manual check.
For us, creating the Oscar mosaic was a very emotional act that lasted a few hours over several evenings. We kept reminiscing. Old mobile phones were mobilized to look at the photo memory, long-forgotten mobile hard drives were dug up and our PCs were turned inside out so as not to forget a picture. A wonderful process according to the motto “the path is the goal”. There were a lot of funny moments and “Remember?” but also tears. The mosaic shows the whole life of our family dog in one picture – that’s the beauty of this technique. Oscar as a puppy, on vacation, in our different living situations, with a baby, with “brother dog” Bruno, on his birthdays, etc. A journey through time – through both our and Oscar’s dog lives – that moves us.
I received a preview via email within a few hours. After numerous correction loops – a very sharp eye area was important to us and there was always new image material, which should not be missing – the time had come and we placed our order. Now all that was left was to wait for the shipping company. Smaller formats are of course sent by post or in a parcel, but with our size of 150 cm x 100 cm, the whole thing was then delivered by a freight forwarder.
Where Can I Order a Photo Mosaic?
We have chosen the provider MakeMyMosaik GmbH. On the one hand, and this should not be concealed at this point, the provider has agreed to take over part of the costs. In return, I promised to publish a small contribution here in the dog magazine. But that wasn’t the main reason.
There seem to be different approaches that can be sorted roughly into “real” and “false” photo mosaics. And when it comes to real mosaic photos, there aren’t that many providers anymore. I read through some reviews, looked at the designs on the websites, and compared the prices and materials. Only a handful of providers remained. I had the best overall impression at MakeMyMosaic GmbH, even though most of the thumbnails there looked a bit “cheesy”.
Choose Material & Size
Photomosaics can be created on numerous surfaces. In digital form, for example, it would be a PDF that is sent to you by email. In the print version, you have a wide variety of designs available from the poster, forex, canvas, birch, aluminum Dibond, and acrylic glass.
My first impulse regarding size was canvas. Here MakeMyMosaic offers sizes up to a maximum of 200 cm x 150 cm. We would have had the space in the living room. But that was too overwhelming for us after the joint meeting. Incidentally, we also decided against canvas because we were concerned that the images would not be sharp on the rough fabric. If you are in the doldrums of making a photo mosaic yourself, you should know in advance where the work of art is to be placed or hung. Then the size is found by itself. With us, it has become 150 cm x 100 cm.