This is the definition of narcissistic: characteristic of those having an inflated idea of their own importance. I’m sure that everybody thinks that this is an awful word, but reality shows us that most of the people try to love themselves and I think this is very good. So I’m going to introduce you how to love yourself with the mosaic of mosaics. You can see the final result bellow:

Spanish actress Carolina Cañada in cutemosaic. Thank you for allowing us to use your image. Original photos at http://www.carolinacanada.com/Bienvenida.html

First select a close-up picture of your liking and open it with the image editor app. I’m going to use Gimp 2, a free open source and excellent image editor available on all main OS. You can download here http://www.gimp.org/

Spanish actress Carolina Cañada

Now It’s important to crop the image according with a clip frame’s standard size. For example, an standard size is 50cm x 60cm, so to match this same proportions we have to calculate something called aspect ratio. Simply put the aspect ratio of any image is it’s width divided by it’s height. The aspect ratio of our standard size of 50cm x 60 cm is 50/60 = 0.83333. Now we know that the aspect ratio for standard size is 0.83333 so the aspect ratio of our image should also be 0.83333. To calculate it first we choose a dimension of the photo we want to preserve, be it the width or the height. In this case we have chosen a fixed width of 373 pixels. Then just use math to find what height is needed:

373/height = 0.83333;   so…

height = 0.83333*373;   and finally…

height = 448

Crop the image

You have to create four different images from the previous one, one in red, second in blue, third in yellow and fourth in green. To do this select the background with the Selection tool and fill the selection in red, blue, yellow and green. Save each image using a meaningful name, for example carolina_yellow.jpg, carolina_green.jpg, etc…

selection tool

fill the selection in yellow

fill the selection in green

Now you have four images in four colors. Just go to http://cutemosaic.com and order your mosaics in four different types. We recommend you to order your four mosaics in 2 megapixel. Because we are going to add up all four of them we’ll reach 8 megapixel total and that is enough to print 50cm x 60cm.

When you receive your mosaics return to your image editor app, we must organize the mosaics to put them inside of the 50cm x 60cm clip frame. All of ours mosaics are 1291 x 1550 pixels. Create a new image to accommodate all of your four mosaics. This new image must have a width double of the width of one mosaic and also an height double of the height of one mosaic. So in our example the dimensions of the new image are 2582 x 3100 pixels. Now is just a matter of pasting and locating correctly every one of your four mosaics on this big image. Your creation will fit perfectly the clip frame of your choice.

mosaics size

new image size

organized mosaic

You too can create compositions like these bellow:

slab mosaic composition

silhouette mosaic composition