Mosaic is a free creative image editing filter from Auto FX. The software makes it very easy to apply creative mosaic effects to your photos and varying the size of the tiles can produce quite detailed stylized images or far more abstract results that look like little more than colored patterns.
If you use Photoshop or an image editor that is compatible with .8bf plugins, you can install Mosaic as a plugin within your host application. If you don't already use an image editor, you can use Auto FX Mosaic as a standalone application.
Highlights of Mosaic
Mosaic is a quite focused application with some attractive features.
- Free to download with some basic user information
- Available for Windows and OS X computers
- Run it as a Photoshop plugin or standalone application
- Easily apply preset mosaic effects
- Interface has roll over tool tips that explain what tools do
- Choose square, hexagon or octagon mosaic tile shapes
Why Use Mosaic
Many pixel-based image editors include a filter to produce mosaic effects and that may seem like an obvious reason to bypass this application. However, Mosaic does offer a greater degree of fine-grained control to allow users to produce effects that are the absolute best fit for the image that they are working on.
By increasing the Neatness slider to the maximum and reducing the Tile Size slider, you can produce images that appear pixelated, which could be a useful effect for designs with a high-tech feel. Reducing the Neatness and increasing the Tile Size will produce more organic feeling images at the expense of image clarity. Unticking the Smooth Surface setting will further help to make more organic results.
Limitations of Mosaic
As is often the case with simple and very focused applications, there is little to criticize in Auto FX Mosaic. It might be nice to have a wider range of tile shapes, other than square, hexagon and octagon, but in tandem with the Neatness slider, these will probably be sufficient for most uses.
Help and Support
Mosaic is pretty straight forward to use and most users should have little difficulty learning to use the software by experimenting with the various settings. If you hold the mouse cursor over a control, a tool tip will appear to describe what that tool does. There is also a simple manual that you can download, though that doesn't offer much more information than the tool tips.
You can download your own free copy of Mosaic from Auto FX.