In the field of photographic imaging, a photomosaic is a picture (usually a photograph) that has been divided into (usually equal sized rectangular) sections, each of which is replaced with either a solid colour, or another image of appropriate average colour. When viewed at low magnifications, the individual pixels appear as the primary image, while close examination reveals that the image is in fact made up of many hundreds or thousands of smaller images. Photomosaics are almost always produced using computers.

Software to create photomosaics was created by MIT students Rob Silvers and is protected by US patent 6,137,498, which also protects photomosaic's “look and feel”.

The word is formed from photo+mosaic.

External links

• Metapixel is a photomosaic generator released under the GPL
• Examples of photomosaics
• Origin of photomosaics

Websites trying to create photo mosaics for different causes

• National Wildlife Federation - Bald Eagle

to do it yourself you can use freeware/postcardware programs like:

• centarsia
• andreamosaic