[Shardz]

App: Mosaic Art Lab v1.3.9
Developer: Ilixa
Category: Photography
Price: N/A
IAP: $2.59

Mosaic Art Lab is an interesting and unique creative tool that strives to give your photos an artistic flair through the use of geometric shapes to form beautiful mosaic patterns. As the cameras in current smartphones have become increasingly complex pieces of hardware, applications such as this allow a great degree of creative flexibility that compliments them quite well. A large assortment of image manipulation apps are available that attempt to tackle a wide range of processing effects; Mosaic Art Lab generally focuses on mosaic algorithms to generate interesting effects with stunning results. Most of the featured algorithms will sample color values of pixels of the source image through customized parameters, then generate various types of geometry with those values and render these shapes as an overlay to create various mosaic effects of your selected images. The results I have obtained through my tests are surprisingly diverse and artistically satisfying considering the fact that this application has a primary function of utilizing a singular mosaic concept of sorts. Mosaic Art Lab doesn't pretend to solve all your image processing needs by throwing redundant and repetitive filters as filler, but instead does what it was designed to do in a remarkable fashion to great effect. By simply pointing the app to a location with a wide assortment of high resolution images, you may spend a great deal of time being entertained and delighted by the flexible algorithms at work. The idea of having just one type of algorithm function seemed to be a bit limiting at a glance; however, there is much more under the hood of this complex app than meets the eye.

Upon starting the application, you are presented with a choice of three options to either load an image from a local storage location, use one of your camera apps to supply a source image or use the randomize function. The first two options are self-explanatory and standard fare in most image manipulation apps; however, the star of the show is the randomize feature that will choose from any image on your device and run the filter with different parameters on each pass. Going into the randomized screen, you may then choose between random image and filter, image, filter or just randomized parameters to experiment to your heart's content. As it was designed to discover the vast effects in an entertaining way, you may repeat any of these functions and the app will reload the source image again and try a new effect with new parameters in a non-destructive manner. This allows for fast and efficient experimentation that will keep graphics enthusiasts riveted for hours playing with all the different available options. You may also choose to process the effect, save it and stack effects on top of each other to create dramatic deviations from the original photo, which can be remarkably interesting to create very unique altered images.The assorted filters range from traditional grids utilizing squares and circles, randomly dispersed shape tiles, hatched patterns, collages, vignettes and even retro 8-bit style computer graphics. Every filter offers several parameters to tweak that vary the shapes, borders, shadows, sizes and other aspects to dial in the perfect desired piece of digital art. The amount of flexibility offered with the parameters, along with the wide range of filters is truly a fantastic package that offers a great deal of variety and detail.

Some of the filters will generate the mosaics in pre-rendered 3D geometric shapes such as cubes and stitch weaving with specular highlights. As the size of the patterns can be adjusted through parameters, the eye sometimes cannot see exactly what this app is truly doing until you pinch-zoom close up to see the intricate details of the effect. This is where you can see what is actually happening with the color sampling from the pixels of the source image and how the shapes adapt and react to the image in question, then magically render out the overlay accordingly. The Vintage PC filter is quite interesting for those who crave retroactive graphics and appears to be a subset of 8bit Photo Lab, which is another fine offering from Ilixa. This filter offers, XGA, Super VGA, Super EGA, VGA, EGA and CGA emulations that will take your source image and make it appear dated from computers of yesteryear quite effectively. On the top of the action bar in the app, there is a handy pull down list that will allow you different views of the various filters in a list or grid format, a full screen option, random mosaic, start screen, post processed image and apply filter which resets the source image to default. The interface is clean and efficient with little confusion to be had, unlike some other image manipulation apps that tend to be a bit too artsy trying to be pretentiously stylish at the expense of efficiency. Everything is laid out in a straightforward fashion with everything you need clearly presented to dive right into the creative fun without trying to combat the developer's reasoning process.

There are a total of thirty filters on offer with the retail version through an IAP purchase of $2.59, which is expanded from the sixteen filters of the free version. Other benefits of a purchase include lossless PNG output, saving in high resolutions up to 4096x4096, convenient action bar and the aforementioned full screen mode that expands visible screen real estate. As you decide to save your image when you are satisfied with the results, you may also crop the image as desired and the usual full sharing options are available for social networking and exporting purposes. The processing speeds are virtually the same on three devices I tested that range from dual core with 1 gig of RAM to quad core with 3 gigs of RAM, which dictates the algorithms are relatively efficient and fast. There is quite a bit to explore and discover in Mosaic Art Lab; even more with your own creativity and experimentation that can lead to radical departures of the source image. For those who absolutely enjoy running their photos through interesting filters with lots of parameters to tweak, along with a nifty and full featured randomize option to smooth out the package, this is a great value for what you get. I highly recommend Mosaic Art Lab to those who love to take the beauty of life and expand upon the norm with creativity and artistry, along with curing the occasional cloud of boredom that drifts into our lives at times.

Pros:

• Numerous filters that offer great variety of effects.
• Parameters can offer a wide range of versatility for creativity.
• An efficient interface with cropping, resolution options and full sharing capability.

Cons:

• More filter types are always welcomed, though added occasionally.
• Some users have reported that the app doesn't run on various devices.

Reviewer rating:
Device/OS used: Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7 2012 / KitKat v4.4.4, Lollipop v5.1.1

Purchase at Google Play
Mobilism: Mosaic Art Lab Pro v1.3.9