Ordering process very confusing, mosaic has issues,  Sunday, 23 March 2008

Our Review:
The ordering process we found to be very confusing. After several attempts and visiting nearly every page on their website, we decided to take them up on their free preview option. Uploading our pictures took several attempts, however eventually we were able to upload our photos. After uploading was complete, we were not sure if we were going to ever receive a mosaic preview as all the screen said was "Thank you, your upload is complete", and thats it. After about 4 days we did receive our preview. We approved the preview and finally figured out send money to Mosaically.
The print arrived about a week later and at first we were very pleased with the mosaic print. However after closer inspection, we realized that the mosaic used quite a bit of colorization and actually superimposed the target source image on top of the cells in a few areas.

The Verdict: This mosaic had promise at first glance, however due to the over use of colorization and the target source being superimposed we could not give this company a high rating.

 Tiny cells make it difficult to appreciate,  Thursday, 20 March 2008

Our Review:
From their online examples, we were somewhat hopeful of this companies product; the source clarity seemed quite refined (almost too refined). After placing an order, we uploaded our images. We struggled somewhat with there online uploading page, but eventually were able to get our photos to Big Mosaics. We did send an email to the company to ensure that the photos were received, however we did not receive a reply.
After about 2 weeks we received our mosaic and our first impression was that the cells were very very small, about 3 to 5 times smaller than any other mosaic company we reviewed. This highly disappointed us as the entire goal of a photo mosaic is to be able to see all of the small photos clearly and easily. We even tried to use a magnifying glass, however the dpi (resolution) of the mosaic was not high enough see the cell images any better. Additionally, we quickly noticed that all of our photos were cropped to squares, this unfortunately is not something we wanted or requested. This undesired cropping removed important people out of our photos. Lastly, we also observed that there was a slight overuse of cell colorization that also degraded the overall mosaic effect.

The Verdict: Although the overall source resemblance looks good, the cell photos are too small to make the mosaic worth displaying.

 Not a true mosaic, target image is superimposed,  Monday, 17 March 2008 Our Review:
From their online examples, we did not have high expectations for this mosaic product. Their descriptions and examples made it very clear that they were going to superimpose the target source image over the cell images. After uploading our photos which we had to three times due to "server issues" they stated they were having, we patiently waited. About two weeks later we received the product that we expected: a highly superimposed target image that was on top of a grid of pictures. The resolution was average. The cell photos were very faded and hard to see (due to the heavy colorization and target source superimposition). The mosaic overall had a dull appearance; we were not sure if this was due to the paper, ink , or mosaic techniques used. At the end of the day we realized that we would have simply preferred a photo enlargement over the mosaic we received.

The Verdict: Heavy superimposing. You get what you pay for; it seems a "true" photo mosaics can not be created at this price point.

 Hands Down The Best Custom Mosaic Service,  Monday, 17 March 2008

Our Review:
In every way Picture Mosaics exceeded our expectations. From their helpful customer service to their end product we were 100% satisfied. It is clear that their software and techniques are superior to everything we have reviewed.

After we placed our order through their very easy online ordering page and uploaded our photos, we were quickly contacted the next day and were told that our photos were a good candidate for their face recognition extraction software, and we agreed. Basically what the face recognition extraction does is extract all of the faces from our photos we submitted and adds them to the photo collection to be used in the mosaic. This almost doubled our cell count and really added to the overall mosaic effect.
After receiving the mosaic print we were very impressed about how large each cell was while still maintaining the clarity of the source image. Since we only supplied them with only 400 images, we were impressed to see that only minimal (no none) cell colorization was used. We were really blown away on the vividness, crispness, and color range of mosaic. The advertised 2880 dpi really makes the difference. It passed our 10x magnify test with flying colors, and clearly allowed us to see even more detail in each cell.

The Verdict: A++ in every way. If you are looking for a mosaic product/service with the "wow" factor, this will be the company to go with.