Guides
How to Make a Custom Photo Puzzle (and Choose the Right Piece Count)
How to turn a photo into a custom jigsaw puzzle: which photos make a puzzle fun to solve, whether to pick 48, 500 or 1,000 pieces, and art styles that help.
A custom photo puzzle is a gift people actually spend time with. Someone sits down with it for an evening or a weekend, and your photo slowly comes together under their hands. The catch is that a photo that looks great in a frame doesn’t always make a good puzzle. Here’s how to pick one that does.
What makes a photo good for a puzzle
Puzzlers find pieces by color, texture and detail. The more of the picture that’s distinct, the more fun it is to solve.
- Avoid big areas of one color. A wide blue sky, a white wall or a dark background becomes dozens of identical pieces. That’s a slog at 500 pieces and worse at 1,000.
- Look for variety. Group photos, gardens, markets, city streets and busy rooms all give every part of the picture something to go on.
- Keep faces away from the edges. A little room around everyone means nobody is cropped by the puzzle’s shape.
- Use a sharp photo. Blur that’s hard to notice on a phone is easy to notice on a puzzle 20″ wide.
Why an art style helps
This is where turning the photo into art first earns its keep. A style redraws the whole picture, so that plain sky gets brushstrokes, clouds or patterns, and flat areas get texture. Styles that make good puzzles:
- Starry Night fills everything, sky included, with thick swirling brushstrokes.
- Floral Surrealism weaves colorful flowers through the whole scene.
- Comic Book has bold inks, bright colors and halftone shading, so regions are easy to tell apart.
- Low Poly rebuilds the photo from triangular facets with vivid gradients.
- Vibrant Fantasy adds rich color and painterly detail throughout.
Soft, minimal styles like Sketch are beautiful on a wall, but all that white space makes for a hard puzzle. Save those for experienced puzzlers who want the challenge.
48, 500 or 1,000 pieces?
- 48 pieces (8″ × 10″): for young kids, or as a quick novelty. It’s done in minutes, and kids love finding their own face.
- 500 pieces (15″ × 20.5″): the best all-round gift. It takes most people an evening or two, and it’s a good size for a family to do together.
- 1,000 pieces (19.7″ × 29.5″): for people who already do puzzles. Expect it to take several sittings, and make sure they have a table big enough to leave it out on.
If you’re not sure how keen they are, go with 500. Every puzzle is printed edge to edge on glossy-coated paperboard and comes with a storage box.
How to order one
- Pick a style and upload your photo. The preview is free and takes under a minute.
- Open the puzzle from your preview to see your image on it, and choose a size.
- Check the crop, add it to your cart and check out. We check every image before it’s made.
Since every puzzle is made to order, check the estimated delivery date on the product page if it’s for a birthday or the holidays.
