Mazaika

I could not find an option to use my pictures to make mosaic items. Without it the program is just a toy for kids.

Excellent program. Free alternatives (i.e. MozoDojo and MacOSaiX) don't have the speed and functionality of Mazaika. Yes they are free, but I've found them to be interminably slow and prone to crash, especially with larger mosaics. No such problems with Mazaika. You get your money's worth with this one.

I was hesitant about Mazaika because, well, MacOSaiX is free, but I downloaded the trial, experimented with it for about a week, and found myself impressed. Mazaika handled creating a library of 63,000 images without a hitch. And it renders mosaics very fast compared to MacOSaiX and MozoDojo, and with good color and tile adjustment. I like that you can use multiple libraries in on image by selecting sections, rendering, switching libraries, selecting a different section, and so on. It could have a more "Mac-like" look to it, but apparently that is a work in progress. And the developer is helpful and quick to reply to questions - always a good sign. For me, the registration fee was money well spent.

Looks very promising but it is a windows app. Wouldn't work for me - and I can tell you that it won't work if you use Aperture for your images. I use Aperture but do have a few files in iPhoto but Masaika couldn't find anything at all. the dev is friendly & responsive but says it will be some time before it will work for Aperture IF he decides to add that 'feature'

I downloaded the demo version and gave it a run-through. I have to say, Mazaika is quite powerful. My only complaint is that it ran on MUPromo yesterday and I missed out! Some features that I find exceptionally helpful are: 1) The ability to set correction levels. Very useful if you are working with small libraries with not enough average image color variation to produce a great mosaic representation of a source image. The source image is essentially overlayed on top of the mosaic, altering the color of the mosaic pictures. You can set the level, but in my experience, even the most aggressive correction doesn't hurt the original images. 2) Set repeat levels It's best to allow the software to intelligently choose images on it's own, but if you have a need to restrict the number of repeats in a mosaic, you can. 3) Statistics report Allow you to output a table of the paths to each image in the mosaic and the X and Y coordinates of each of it's uses in the final image. 4) Create as many image libraries as you like This is one of the killer features. Create specific libraries of images for specific purposes. You don't have to include pictures of the car restoration if you just want to create a mosaic of the kids for their grandparents. You can even create libraries from many sources without having to copy images to a central location before importing. 5) Export to TIFF or JPG to specific size (in px, cm or inches), DPI 6) No limits on tiles height/width ratios or tile size 7) Open and render in high resolution.

MacBook Pro 8gb Ram Snow Leopard 10.6.2 160gb SSD with very few programs. I could NOT get this to work. I created New Library from 278 iPhoto pictures shot by Nikon D40 JPEG. Library creates, no pictures show and unable to select Source. Very disappointed and will try http://homepage.mac.com/knarf/MacOSaiX/