Creating big blocks/grid of color from a photograph, using Photoshop perhaps?
December 17, 2008 12:15 PM Subscribe
What do you do in Photoshop to create a 4x5 grid, where each block has the "average color" of its coverage in a photograph?
It's for making a quilt, based on a photo. I used to know how to do this. It's not hard. It has to do with changing the pixel size or something, but I can't remember. Doesn't have to be Photoshop, necessarily, could be a free alternative. Help!
It's for making a quilt, based on a photo. I used to know how to do this. It's not hard. It has to do with changing the pixel size or something, but I can't remember. Doesn't have to be Photoshop, necessarily, could be a free alternative. Help!
Best answer: Unless I'm misunderstanding you (and I certainly could be) you just need to open your photo in Photoshop, make sure it's the right general proportions [like X units across and Y units down] and then you use the Filter > Pixelate > Mosaic filter and adjust it around a little until the blocks look right. Is that what you mean?
posted by jessamyn at 12:26 PM on December 17, 2008
posted by jessamyn at 12:26 PM on December 17, 2008
Seconding jessamyn. Mosaic, followed by Posterize if you want to narrow down the number of colors.
posted by rhizome at 12:27 PM on December 17, 2008
posted by rhizome at 12:27 PM on December 17, 2008
Best answer: Image > Image Size . . .
Deselect constrain proportions option and set the resampling filter popup to nearest neighbor.
Then scale the width by 25% of the original width and the height by 20%.
This gives you a blocky but smaller image.
Then reverse (select constrain proportions, resampling filter to nearest neighbor) and scale the width and height back to the original.
posted by troy at 12:57 PM on December 17, 2008
Deselect constrain proportions option and set the resampling filter popup to nearest neighbor.
Then scale the width by 25% of the original width and the height by 20%.
This gives you a blocky but smaller image.
Then reverse (select constrain proportions, resampling filter to nearest neighbor) and scale the width and height back to the original.
posted by troy at 12:57 PM on December 17, 2008
Best answer: Unknowncommand, the most general way to do this is as follows:
1. Open the image you want to make a quilt from.
2. Determine the final number of blocks (say, 4x5 in your case, but that seems coarse).
3. Go to Image -> Image Size
4. Check the drop down menu at the bottom. Set it to "Nearest Neighbor". This makes the blocks instead of making things smeary.
5. Enter your the number of quilt blocks in the "width" and "height" boxes. Be sure to have them set to "pixels" and not inches or something. Click OK.
6. Go back to Image -> Image Size, making sure "Nearest Neighbor" is still selected. Resize the image to the original size. it will be all blocky just like you want it to be.
"Mosaic" works too, but I prefer this more general method that requires no guessing/judgment.
posted by fake at 1:00 PM on December 17, 2008 [2 favorites]
1. Open the image you want to make a quilt from.
2. Determine the final number of blocks (say, 4x5 in your case, but that seems coarse).
3. Go to Image -> Image Size
4. Check the drop down menu at the bottom. Set it to "Nearest Neighbor". This makes the blocks instead of making things smeary.
5. Enter your the number of quilt blocks in the "width" and "height" boxes. Be sure to have them set to "pixels" and not inches or something. Click OK.
6. Go back to Image -> Image Size, making sure "Nearest Neighbor" is still selected. Resize the image to the original size. it will be all blocky just like you want it to be.
"Mosaic" works too, but I prefer this more general method that requires no guessing/judgment.
posted by fake at 1:00 PM on December 17, 2008 [2 favorites]
hmm, re-reading, if you want to keep the blocks a true average of their coverage keep the resampling filter to be bicubic on the scale down. Scaling back up should be nearest neighbor to give you the block effect.
posted by troy at 1:02 PM on December 17, 2008
posted by troy at 1:02 PM on December 17, 2008
scruss has it. Just scale the image down to the appropriate number of pixels, then scale it back up (with interpolation turned off).
posted by chrisamiller at 3:08 PM on December 17, 2008
posted by chrisamiller at 3:08 PM on December 17, 2008
If you have a reasonably recent version of photoshop, you'll have an "Average" filter in the Filter>Blur menu. Just set up some guides (the tricky part, I suppose), draw a selection box around each area and apply the filter.
posted by O9scar at 9:40 PM on December 17, 2008
posted by O9scar at 9:40 PM on December 17, 2008
Response by poster: Thanks guys! I stupidly had to post this immediately before going where I have no Photoshop. I'll check it out tomorrow.
posted by unknowncommand at 7:34 AM on December 18, 2008
posted by unknowncommand at 7:34 AM on December 18, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by scruss at 12:21 PM on December 17, 2008 [1 favorite]