Will Your Photo Work as a Paint By Number?

As a rule of thumb, at least 1 megapixel (roughly 1000 x 1000 pixels) for a 30x40cm canvas, 2 megapixels for 40x50cm, and 3.5 megapixels for 50x65cm. Kits are printed at around 100dpi, and below those figures the numbered regions start to land on image noise rather than real detail. Any photo from a phone made in the last decade clears the bar easily — the usual culprit is a copy that has been through a messaging app, which strips resolution. Send the original file.

The generator turns areas of similar colour into numbered regions with hard outlines. Blur has no hard edges, so instead of a crisp jaw line or ear you get vague, wandering region boundaries that are unpleasant to paint and read as mush when finished. Slight softness is fine. Motion blur and out-of-focus subjects are the ones to avoid.

Yes, more than most people expect. A kit has a fixed set of pre-mixed paints, so tones that sit close together on the original collapse into the same paint. A flat, evenly lit photo can end up as a canvas painted almost entirely in two or three near-identical colours. Photos with clear light and shade separate into distinct paints and look far better finished.

No. The check runs entirely in your browser using a canvas element. The photo is read from your device, measured, and discarded when you close the page. Nothing is sent to a server and nothing is stored. You only send us a photo if you go on to order a kit.

A close-up of a single clear subject against a simple background, taken in good light. Portraits of people and pets work particularly well. Busy backgrounds compete with the subject for numbered regions and dilute the result. Group shots taken from a distance are the most common disappointment, because each face ends up only a few regions across.

Yes. The check is advice, not a gate — every kit is reviewed by hand before printing, and we will tell you if we think a photo will disappoint before we make anything. If a photo is borderline, choosing a smaller canvas is usually the fix, because fewer numbered regions need less detail from the original.