Build a colour-tile mosaic. One measured mean colour per square, separated by grout whose width and colour belong to you.
This is a rebuild: your photo is taken apart and remade, not just recoloured. It runs in this tab and nothing is uploaded.
Tip A recognisable silhouette and broad colour regions survive coarse tiles better than small text or facial detail.
The operation behind the appearance
The raster is partitioned from the top-left into square cells. Every source pixel in a cell contributes to one mean RGBA colour. That colour fills the cell except for the chosen top and left grout strips, producing a repeatable grid whose geometry scales with export resolution.
The controls are measurements
- Tile size
- The side of each square cell in pixels.
- Grout width
- The separator reserved inside each cell.
- Grout colour
- The literal output colour written into those separators.
Where the construction breaks
The origin is fixed at the top-left, so an important eye or edge can land under grout. Change tile size to move the grid relationship. A grout width near one third of the tile leaves too little colour area and makes the picture read as a lattice rather than a mosaic.
The preview, draft and export all run the same kernel. Parameters measured in pixels are scaled with the source, so a chosen tile, band or radius does not become unexpectedly finer in the downloaded file.
Questions about this effect
How is this different from pixelation?
Pixelation fills adjacent blocks with means but no separator. Mosaic reserves a visible grout strip inside every tile, making the grid part of the result.
Are the tiles sampled or guessed?
Each tile colour is the arithmetic mean of the source pixels under that tile. No palette or model is involved.
Can grout be removed?
Yes. Set its width to zero and the result becomes a regular square-block mosaic without separators.
Related on this site
- PixelateSquare or hexagonal blocks, each one flat, with optional palette quantisation.
- PaintingSmoothed regions, reduced colour steps and measured contour weight.
- PosteriseContinuous tone reduced to measured channel levels, with optional pre-dither.
- Filter picture online41 colour looks and 20 effects, chosen from your own photograph rather than from a list of names.
Rendered on your computer, not on a server.