How to Easily Create a Photo Mosaic Overlay Using Lightroom and Photoshop

Photo mosaic overlays are a very cool effect that can be a great way to tie a set of images together around a main photo. Traditionally, they're quite a bit of work to make, but this awesome tutorial will show you a shortcut to creating them using Lightroom and Photoshop. 

Coming to you from Phlearn, this helpful video will show you how to create a photo mosaic overlay using Lightroom and Photoshop. The effect can be really stunning: imagine taking all the delivered photos from a wedding and creating an overlay on a shot of the bride and groom or the like. Instead of building it from scratch, though, which would be very time-consuming, the trick is to do a little math to determine the correct dimensions, then use Photoshop's built-in contact sheet feature to make the mosaic. From there, you'll define it as a pattern that can be then stretched or compressed to fit whatever image you'd like to apply it to. After that, it's simply a bit of blending mode changes and adjustment layers to alter the effect to taste and you're done! It's a fun and different effect that doesn't take much effort, so grab a set of images and give it a try! 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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4 Comments

Well, thats not a photo mosaic that makes out an image, that's just random images overlaid by an image. In a true photo mosaic you don't change color or luminosity of the original images. Like these http://www.mazaika.com/newsite/gallery.html

Agreed, that’s why I called it a “photo mosaic overlay.” :)

It's kind of shocking Adobe hasn't made an option for making a true photo mosaic out of a ton of images. I remember having some software that did that 12 years ago but I think they never updated it. I've had wedding clients ask for something like that before but I don't know of anyway to make it.

I came across a website awhile back that would do it. Don't remember it now though. I think you had to pay for a high rez download.