How to pick a photo for a brick mosaic
Published October 13, 2026
Your mosaic is made from the middle square of your photo. Here is how to pick a photo, a size, a piece type and a color mode that suit it.
A brick mosaic turns a photo into a flat, square picture, one small piece per stud. The photo you pick and three options decide how it looks.
Fill the frame with one subject
Your mosaic is always square. If your photo is wider or taller than that, we use the square in the middle and leave the edges out.
- Put your subject in the middle of the photo.
- Get close enough that it fills most of the frame. Even a large mosaic is 64 studs across, so a subject that fills the frame gets more of them than one far away.
- Don’t worry about which way you held your phone. Photos come out the right way up.
Pick a size
| Size | Studs |
|---|---|
| Small | 32 x 32 |
| Medium | 48 x 48 |
| Large | 64 x 64 |
A large mosaic has four times as many studs as a small one, so it has room for more detail. It also takes more pieces. You see the finished mosaic and its piece count before you start building.
Choose a piece type
- Tile is smooth and flat. It’s the default.
- Plate has a stud on top of every square.
- Round uses small round pieces, for a dotted look.
Full color or grayscale
Full color matches each part of your photo to the nearest brick color.
Grayscale is meant for portraits. It uses up to five shades of gray, spread from dark to light, for strong contrast. A face has small features, so give it a medium or large size.
Photos that work well
- Good light, so your subject isn’t lost in shadow.
- A plain background, so your subject stands out from what’s behind it.
- Large, clear shapes of light and dark. The whole photo becomes 64 studs across at most, so small details get lost.
- A JPG, PNG or HEIC photo, up to 10MB.
Mosaics stay private
You can’t share a mosaic publicly, because it’s made from a personal photo.
Make yours
Make a mosaic in your browser. It’s free.