One Response to “Is there a program that will convert a picture to an 86×86 grid for a mosaic art project?”

1. By Noodle on Mar 24, 2010 | Reply

   I’m assuming by squares you mean how many squares you want on the whole grid not the grid size

   The easiest way i found when doing a project like this is to use photoshop. Simply get the image and open it in photoshop.You’ll then need to get your image to become a factor of 86 so that it looks even. The closer the better really (for instance if you have a 840×840 picture you’ll want to make a new canvas at 860×860 then put your image in there and resize it). Once you have your now perfect canvas size, set up a grid for 86×86 (view, show, grid) then (edit, preferences, guides grids slices and count). Get your canvas size and divide by 86 and thats how much you put into the “gridline every” box. This is really where the smaller equals better. Also you may want to use less than 86 squares as that is a lot of little squares (about 7300), so you might want to do something like 20×20 and work your way up from there if you think you need more. If however you have larger image, then more squares may be needed. But moving on. From there, make as many layers as you want colors, and select the whole canvas and fill each layer with your chosen colors, Don’t worry about the image disappearing. Now just get the rectangular marquee tool and select a row of 4 squares (if you have 4 colors) and delete them. Keep doing this missing out a square , then go to the next layer and repeat this process again but missing out two squares until all your colors come through in a grid style. Once thats done get your image and make it transparent (i.e remove all white and colour so that all you have is essentially a line drawing) and put it on top. I hope i helped and i’ll post a pic of what mine came out like just in case you want to check if its the right style