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Mosaizer Version v5.0

Copyright © March 24, 2007 APP Helmond  All Rights Reserved
Release Date: October 31, 2007
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This program is Freeware.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form without express
written permission of APP Helmond is prohibited

To install double click Mosaizer.exe

To uninstall Mosaizer click uninstall from the Start Menu
or the Add/Remove Programs tab

APP Helmond
sybren@mosaizer.com
www.mosaizer.com

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Mosaizer is a program to paint with pictures. Mosaizer is software that will extend your creative abilities with automated photo mosaic painting. 

Unlike programs that create photo mosaics only, this program gives you unlimited freedom to create your photographic paintings yourself, based on a library of bitmaps with an extensive range of supporting tools.

The secret of Mosaizer lies in the two basic creativity tools: (32bit) alpha masks and the Mosaizer. With alpha masks you will leverage transparency of bitmaps to create surprising effects when painting with bitmaps. You can make your own alpha masks. The second creativity tool is the 'Mosaizer', a tool to recreate a bitmap from pieces of itself.

Possibilities with Mosaizer:

1. Creation of photo mosaics
2. Mosaizing = cutting a bitmap is small parts, from which the program rebuilds the original, but with slightly different positions. It creates an effect of a badly made jigsaw puzzle
3. Advanced masking functionality: overlays (semi-transparent bitmaps) and alpha masks (controlled transparency of the bitmap).
4. 3D Graphic effects: buttonize, shadow, distort
5. Multiple file formats: bmp, jpg (jpeg), png, gif, ico, wmf and emf
6. 32Bit masks to combine masking, alpha channel and overlays in one mask/bitmap
7. The Preview window, to quickly evaluate the effect of pre-processing filters and effects
8. The Masker: a dedicated mask manager to fully control the intented result
9. Ini-file manager: to convene the management of the input, output, masks, libraries and settings
10. Library creation to make libraries of bitmaps that can be used by the Mosaizer program
11. Photo-Mixer = a fun tool to mix two bitmaps, that look similar. Great fun to mix two faces into one
12. The Match-Probe = checking the colour range of the created library
13. Post-processing filters to enhance the resulting multi-photo
    - blending with the original bitmap
    - anti-alias, smooth/sharpen, contrast, lighten/darken, (de)saturate
14. One-cell mosaizing = building a bitmap from repeatedly using it's own bitmap (though significantly smaller)
14. Random picture generator, works in degrees of randomness.
15. Open mask-system to allow for addition of user-made alpha masks
16. Editing each individual or similar cells of the resulting multi-photo bitmap. This way small errors can easily be corrected
17. Three different color matching algorithms to allow for better results
18. Prep-processing features
    - fast evaluation of the color match quality of picture library and source picture
    - source color tuning filters to increase overall photo-mosaic

Characteristics of Mosaizer:
- Extremely fast and accurate color matching
- Non-rectangular shapes
- No limit to the result output (currently the size limit is 4.6 GB, or 400,000 cells of 196x196 pixels)
- Two types of color corrections: of the total picture (average method) or for each cell individually ('colorize')
- Cell variation control (incl. random cell-patterns)
- Random picture generator to increasingly diffuse a source bitmap
- library size limited to 5000 (larger is not economical)
- cell numbers 2000x2000 (work in progress to have no limits to size at all)
- supporting grid to visually see the cell positions and density before rendering
- easy to set user-presets and preferred settings
- ability to print a text on the result, the font can be preset
- ability to print a user logo on the result
- supported file formats: BMP, JPG/JPEG (work in progress to support PNG, GIF, TIFF, TGA, PCX, WMF, EMF as well)
- well documented help file, examples and web-page
- libraries are availabe from the website
- sample images for source are available from the website

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HOW TO REGISTER

Registering Mosaizer is easy. The trial version has time limitations. In order to keep using Mosaizer, you must register to receive a registration number.
How to Register: Registration is performed online or from the 'About' tab in Mosaizer. After (e-mail) request for a FREE serial number, your registration number will be emailed to you. In Mosaizer click the 'About' button, and click the Registration tab, and input your name, personal passcode and received registration number. This process usually takes a working day.
Registration is now complete!

CONTACT

Mosaizer homepage: http://www.mosaizer.com

Some questions, bug report and advice you can send to sybren@mosaizer.com

Thank you for using Mosaizer.

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SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Because of the CPU intensive nature of bitmap manipulation, Mosaizer needs the right computing environment. The following minimum system requirements are: 
- 1.4 GHz Intel or AMD processesor
- 256 MB RAM memory
- 20 Mb of harddisk space for picture libraries
- 100 Mb of harddisk space to store real big multi-photo bitmaps
- Windows 2000/XP
- 15" Monitor with 1024 x 768 pixels

The following system is recommended:
- 2.4 GHz Intel or AMD processesor
- 512 Mb RAM memory
- 50 Mb of harddisk space for picture libraries
- 250 Gb of harddisk space to store real big multi-photo bitmaps
- Windows 2000/XP
- 17" Monitor with 1280 x 1024 pixels

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History

Version 5.0:
- added the Pre-Processing functionality
  > visual library color matching with source picture
  > pre-filtering the source picture to enhance the color match
- minor bugs are solved
- the library quality indicator calculation has been improved to better reflect the color match
- anonymous use: time restriction limitation of 30 days, after that a serial number is required to keep using Mosaizer for free (e-mail required)
- Shareware version changed to Freeware

4.4.37 beta
- improved pre- and postprocessing workflow
- introduction of 3 different color matching algorithms (still in beta phase)
- better visibility of the effect of post-processing filters
- introduction of a library match indicator

4.4.33 corrected features
- now the sourcemasks work with split files

4.4.32 minor bugfixes
- with 'delete temp directory' the program does not crash any more
- now with 'buttonize circle' amount = 0 does not generate 'divide by zero' error

4.4.31 original release June 1 
- first release of version 4.4