Filed under: Multimedia, Software, Odds and ends, Graphic Design
PhotoTiles: Make an image of images
Sometimes I see the name of a new piece of software that someone tips us off to, and the name conjures up something completely different from what the reality is. PhotoTiles, for instance, brought to mind the ability to create those cool pictures that are made up of all of your other photos. You know, like having a TUAW Logo that is made up of 2,500 thumbnail pictures that are chosen for their hue and intensity, then placed in the proper location.
Well, PhotoTile doesn't exactly do that, but this small program from Limit Point Software is a handy utility. Instead of doing what I imagined, it basically takes a folder of image and turns that into one grid-like "über-image."
For example, I took my Photo Booth folder, added a TUAW logo to round up to an even number of pictures, and dragged it onto PhotoTile. In a few seconds, it created the image that you see at right.
This is great for creating contact sheets of photos. PhotoTiles is donation-ware. If you use it, make a donation and you'll get an unlock code that unlocks all utilities from Limit Point Software including PhotoTiles.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Devin said 3:24PM on 7-07-2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donationware
"unlock code"
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Aayush Arya said 3:37PM on 7-07-2008
PhotoTiles, for instance, brought to mind the ability to create those cool pictures that are made up of all of your other photos. You know, like having a TUAW Logo that is made up of 2,500 thumbnail pictures that are chosen for their hue and intensity, then placed in the proper location.
Ha ha! That’s a mosaic.
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Mike said 3:34PM on 7-07-2008
There is a great piece of freeware that DOES make those cool Photo Mosaic images that form another image... Its called MacOSaiX and it is one of my all-time favorite freeware programs. It is available here: http://homepage.mac.com/knarf/MacOSaiX/
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ecobore said 5:55PM on 7-07-2008
You're right,
it IS great! just playing with it now...
evanzdad said 3:48PM on 7-07-2008
I have only recently started playing with this technique using Apple's built-in screensaver. You can choose an iPhoto Library to be the building blocks of larger pictures (those beach and forest pictures I had ignored as stock photos) that will "transform" into the actual image while you Mac uses your appropriate pics to make the larger picture. Really cool how it can find the right colors and hues to pull it off.
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ecobore said 5:49PM on 7-07-2008
Yeah, but why can't we access that app outside screen savers? I want something that will do this to different sizes and resolutions and access my imagery with Aperture...
Julian Mason said 5:46PM on 7-07-2008
Get ready for the old-school geek-out. For those of you who did not shoot in the celluloid era, this is what has been used for years as a proof called a contact sheet. The roll is laid on paper, developed, and a straight image transfer results. It is a very useful way of screening images.
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larry said 1:59AM on 7-09-2008
there is an automator script that does the same
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