Composite images?

[Cedd]

I am currently doing a part-time humanities degree and as part of my course I need to produce a piece of artwork. I am thinking about an image where you have, say, a face but the face is actually made up of thousands of smaller images which are coloured to make the larger image (if that makes sense). It may sound cliched but I think it will work in my context.

My questions are: What is this process / effect actually called and how do you go about it? Is it done within photoshop or is there a specialised program for that effect? Is it easy to do with the right program or is it actually a specialist job?

Any views most welcome...

[Mudbug]

it's called a photomosaic, or photographic mosaic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photomosaic

not a clue on how to make them, though - sorry.

[Cedd]

The name is a good start - thanks!

[faustfire]

I think this is what you are looking for,

http://homepage.mac.com/knarf/MacOSaiX/

[Cedd]

Thanks again!

[Dafke]

this MacOSaiX is really a nice piece of software, and it's free!
it may take a while (at least it does on my pbook) but the result is good, especially if you use a lot of pictures.
I'm creating one mosaic right now that consists of 100*100 photo's and i let the program use all my photo's which is like 15 GB and it's starting to look great! I'll post the result when it's finished.