Choosing the right picture for your puzzle is really important. You can find out more about the technical details in our FAQ, but here we’re going to talk about the content of the picture.
You see, the picture you choose doesn’t just affect how the finished puzzle looks - it changes how difficult it is, too.
Think about it. If your picture has lots of areas that are just a solid color (like sky, or a painted wall), that bit is going to be really tricky to put together. Same if you have lots of a similar texture, like grass or leaves.
And you can have too much detail, too. If you choose a picture of a crowd for your puzzle, with hundreds of tiny faces, by the time it’s been cut into pieces you can often find that you can’t really see any of them.
So what makes the perfect picture?
Well, if you’re using people, smaller group shots or individuals tend to work better. If it’s for a wedding, a picture of the happy couple or maybe a family group shot should work well - but avoid that huge group shot with everyone who was there!
Pet and baby pictures usually work well, as do beautiful landscapes from a special vacation - just remember if there’s lots of sea or sky it could be a challenging puzzle.
High-quality, high-contrast pictures are better than low-resolution, muddy images where it’s hard to make out what’s what. A good rule of thumb is that if it looks a bit blurry and unclear on your screen, it will probably look worse when it’s cut into pieces for a puzzle.
You’ll want to make sure that your picture doesn’t have any watermarks or timestamps, either. Some cameras add these to images automatically, and if your picture has come from a screenshot that will have all the screen text from your phone added. These look ugly on your finished puzzle, so it’s best to avoid them.
Bear in mind as well that your picture will probably be cropped a little bit to fit the shape of the puzzle perfectly. Our puzzles are made to set dimensions (you can find these in the FAQ) so if your picture is a little wider or taller than the puzzle you’ll lose a bit from either side. So it’s best to choose a picture where all the important bits are in the middle, rather than right at the edges.
Of course, when you upload your picture you’ll be able to preview how it looks, and move it around in the frame. It’s always worth taking some time over this rather than assuming it’ll be right.
