How custom photo puzzles work
Turning a photo of your own into a real jigsaw — four plain steps, no surprises. That's all most people need; sizes and the finer detail are further down if you want them.
This is the guide for our custom photo puzzles — making a jigsaw from a photo of your own. Ready-made puzzles, the rotating board and accessories order like anything else: add to cart and check out.
Choose a photo
Open your camera roll, not a screenshot folder. Originals from a modern phone are usually plenty — what we want is a sharp face, even daylight, and the subject filling most of the frame. Photos rescued from Instagram, group chats or social saves are compressed a few times over and often look softer than the source.
If you can choose between three near-identical shots, pick the one with the eyes in focus and the lightest background. That tends to translate best onto board.
We auto-enhance
Every upload runs through an upscaling, denoising and color-correction pass before you ever see the preview. The pipeline lifts fine detail back out of phone-compressed JPEGs, tidies up shadow grain, and nudges skin tones away from the green cast that warm lamps leave behind.
It usually takes ten to thirty seconds depending on the size of the file. You can opt out from the preview screen if you prefer your original, character intact.
Pick the crop and size
Drag the photo inside the puzzle outline to set the crop, then scrub through 252, 500, 1000 and 1500 pieces. Each step up shows you the finished dimensions and an honest sharpness rating for your photo at that size.
Not sure which size fits the moment? The sizes below show all four drawn to the same scale beside a sheet of A4, with the finished dimensions, so the numbers mean something.
We print and post
The image lays down in four-color offset on a proper 2 mm board — heavy enough to lie flat and not curl after a week out on the table. The cutting die is laser-cut to keep edges crisp; the first piece off every run is hand-fitted against its neighbor before the rest of the order goes through.
The finished puzzle, a reference print of the image and a small instruction card go into an unbleached kraft box. We dispatch within three working days by tracked delivery. Delivery cost depends on where it's going and is shown at checkout before you pay. Full terms on the shipping page.
Photos that make lovely puzzles
Step one is choosing a photo — and almost any works. A pet, a place, the people you'd keep forever. A few that always come out beautifully:
A pet who runs the house
The day you’d live again
A view you didn’t want to leave
The people you’d keep forever
The cat, of course
The place that’s home
These are the kind of photos to start from — your own picture becomes the finished jigsaw.
Sizes & detail
Most people just let the configurator pick a size. Here's the full picture if you'd rather choose yourself.
How big is each size?
All four sizes, drawn to the same scale and nested inside one another so you can see at a glance how they compare — with a sheet of A4 paper alongside for a feel of the real thing.
Drawn to scale. The A4 sheet (21 × 29.7 cm) is there for a sense of the real size; each size’s exact finished dimensions are on its card below.
Pick your size
252pieces
36 × 25 cm · 14.2 × 9.8 in
A gift for someone, or an evening with the kids. Done before bedtime.
- Time
- ~1–2 hours
- Scale
- an A4 sheet
- Min photo
- 900px
500pieces
Most popular48 × 34 cm · 18.9 × 13.4 in
A weekend at the family table. The sweet spot — long enough to feel like a project, short enough to finish.
- Time
- ~3–5 hours
- Scale
- an open laptop
- Min photo
- 1200px
1000pieces
68 × 48 cm · 26.8 × 18.9 in
An adult challenge. Faces and landscapes read sharp at this size.
- Time
- ~10–14 hours
- Scale
- a small flat-screen TV
- Min photo
- 1800px
1500pieces
91 × 61 cm · 35.8 × 24.0 in
For someone who's done a 1000 and wants more. A few weekends.
- Time
- ~18–25 hours
- Scale
- a coffee-table top
- Min photo
- 2400px
Finished sizes are approximate — about ±5 mm per edge from die-cut variance. Centimeters are the spec we print to; inches are display-only.
Will my photo work at the bigger sizes?
The configurator tells you up front. Drop your photo onto the homepage and you'll see a sharpness rating plus the largest puzzle size that photo will print cleanly. Choose a bigger size at your own risk and the result will look softer.
As a rough rule: a modern phone photo taken in good light supports up to 1000 pieces. For 1500 pieces, we recommend a dedicated camera shot or a high-resolution scan.
Honest expectations
- Phone photos look softer at the bigger sizes. A 1500-piece puzzle is roughly 91 cm wide, which is a lot of board for a 12-megapixel original to fill — the configurator will warn you. If in doubt, pick one size down.
- Custom-printed items have limited change-of-mind rights — once we've printed your specific image we can't resell it. We do reprint, free, anything that arrives damaged or mis-printed. Full policy on refunds.
- HEIC, JPEG, PNG and WebP all upload fine — up to 50 MB. iPhone HEICs are converted server-side; no need to export to JPG first.
- One photo per puzzle for now — no collages or multi-image grids. It's on the roadmap; we'd rather ship one tightly than two badly.
Materials
- 2 mm recycled gray-board backing, matte-laminate top sheet.
- Die-cut interlocking pieces with mixed shapes (no two identical).
- Boxed with reference print, polybag for the pieces, and a small instruction card.
Ready when you are
Drop a photo onto the product page and the configurator picks a starting size based on resolution. You can change everything before you pay.
If something goes wrong
Damaged in transit, mis-printed, or just not what you hoped? Get in touch through our contact page with a photo and we'll sort it. Full policy on refunds.
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