Are you ready for today’s Strands puzzle? If you’re finding yourself stuck on the August 2, 2025 edition with the theme “Pretty as a picture,” don’t worry! This article provides hints, clues, and the final solution to help you conquer the game. Strands, the New York Times’ latest word puzzle, blends elements of crosswords and word searches, challenging players to find hidden words within a grid of letters.
In this guide, we’ll provide increasingly specific hints to nudge you in the right direction without giving away too much. We’ll start with general clues about the spangram and theme words, before diving into the answers themselves. Whether you need a little nudge or the full solution, we’ve got you covered. Let’s get started and solve today’s Strands puzzle!
Hint for the spangram in today’s Strands puzzle
Think of programs like Canva, Instagram, or those from Adobe.
Hint for the theme words in today’s Strands puzzle
Consider image actions.
BEWARE: Spoilers follow for today’s Strands puzzle!
We’re about to give away the answers to today’s Strands puzzle.
What is the spangram in today’s Strands?
Today’s spangram is PHOTOEDITOR.
What are the theme words in today’s Strands?
The theme words today are: FILTER, MARKUP, ROTATE, ADJUST, BLUR, ERASE, CROP.
Here’s what the board looks like when the puzzle is solved:
How I solved today’s Strands
Today’s puzzle might relate to beauty, but it could also be about painting or photography. Let’s see.
I see the word PHOTO starting along the left edge, but it’s not a theme word.
Maybe I can place that J somewhere, since it’s not a super common letter. Yep, ADJUST. 🔵
Ah, PHOTO is the start of the spangram: PHOTOEDITOR. 🟡 Got it, so we’re looking for editing actions.
CROP is in the bottom left. 🔵
ERASE starts in the bottom right corner. 🔵
BLUR finishes the bottom half. 🔵
FILTER starts above the left half of the spangram. 🔵
ROTATE is in the upper right corner. 🔵
Lastly, MARKUP. 🔵
Strands #517 “Pretty as a picture” 🔵🟡🔵🔵 🔵🔵🔵🔵
How to play Strands
You can find the Strands game on the New York Times website and in the NYT Games app.
When you start playing, you’ll see a game board with an assortment of letters, flanked by a clue that gives a hint at the board’s theme—this will be a phrase, like “Better with age.” Your job is to find the hidden words within the board that reflect the puzzle’s theme.
A crossword crossed with a word search
The most important word to find is the “spangram,” a word that more explicitly states the puzzle’s theme. (For example, the spangram for the puzzle with the theme “Better with age” is FERMENTED, which describes products that are, you guessed it, better with age.) The spangram will span the entire game board, either from left to right or top to bottom (hence the name). When you find the spangram, it will be highlighted in yellow. Solving the spangram usually makes the rest of the puzzle much easier to complete.
In Strands, words can travel any direction (up, down, left, right, and diagonal), and you will only use each letter once. There is only one correct solution. When you correctly identify one of the puzzle’s words (for example, KOMBUCHA, MISO, or KIMCHI), it will be highlighted in blue.
If you are struggling to solve the puzzle, you can submit any non-theme words you see (as long as they are four letters or more) to receive credit toward a single hint. If you submit three non-theme words, the “Hint” button will be clickable; if you click it, all of the letters in one of the theme words will be highlighted for you. You will still have to link these highlighted letters in the right order to form one of the theme words. If there is already a hint on the board and you use another hint before solving for that word, that word’s letter order will be revealed.
How to win Strands
Unlike Connections and Wordle, you cannot fail Strands. When you submit guesses, you will either correctly identify an answer, receive credit toward a hint, or the text will shake back and forth, indicating that the word you submitted is too short or not valid. You can’t run out of guesses, and there is no time limit.
You win when you’ve correctly used all the letters on the board, meaning that you have identified the spangram and all of the theme words. Like other NYT games, upon solving the puzzle, you will see a shareable card that indicates how you performed that day: blue dots 🔵 indicate theme words you found, the yellow dot 🟡 indicates when you found the spangram, and a lightbulb 💡 indicates words that you received a hint for.
Not the day you’re after?
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