Turn a photo into a laser-cut jigsaw puzzle

A photo puzzle is two jobs on one board. First the laser engraves the photo, then it cuts the pieces. The tool lays out both at the same physical size, so they line up when you run them one after the other without moving the board.

The photo is centre-cropped to fill the puzzle size you set, then sized, toned and dithered for the material you pick, at the DPI you choose. The cut path is a vector: a red 0.01 mm hairline that your laser software reads as its own cut layer.

• PNG (engrave): the dithered photo at your DPI, for the engrave pass.
• SVG (cut only): just the red cut path, in millimetres.
• SVG (engrave and cut): the engraving and the cut path in one file, on separate layers, ready to import into LightBurn. Read more in LightBurn-ready files.

Many puzzle files draw each piece as its own closed outline. Then every line between two pieces is in the file twice, and the laser cuts it twice: a wider kerf, scorched edges, loose pieces and twice the time. Here each edge between two pieces is drawn exactly once. The edges along each grid line are joined into one continuous line, and the border is one closed path, so the head spends its time cutting rather than jumping.

The tool shows the total cut length and a rough cut time for the speed and number of passes you enter, including a moment for each line start. Engraving time comes on top of that, and a test cut on a scrap of the same material is still the way to find your real speed and power.

Choose a piece count from 2 to 1000 and the tool picks a grid with near-square pieces for your size, or set rows and columns yourself. Below the count it shows the size of each piece, and it warns you when pieces get smaller than about 12 mm, where you need thin material and a fine beam.

Tab size sets how big the knobs are, from 10 to 30 percent of a piece. Bigger tabs hold together better. Jitter at 0 makes every tab identical and centred; higher values move, resize and wave the tabs for a hand-made look. The seed fixes the layout, so the same seed always gives the same puzzle, and Shuffle gives you a new one.

You can round the four outer corners, limited so the curve stays inside the corner pieces, and the engraving follows the rounded border. Turn off the outer border cut if the board is already cut to size or you frame it another way.

Pick any of the ten material presets. The preview shows the photo on the material with the red cut path over it, or the file itself, where black means burn. On wood the photo burns dark as it is, and the engraving is never mirrored, because the cut path is not mirrored either. Match the DPI to your beam with the laser DPI calculator.

Sizes run from 20 to 600 mm on each side, in millimetres or inches. When you load a photo, the height follows the photo's shape, and you can change it. A sample photo is loaded when you open the tool, so you can try every setting before you use your own.