Passport Photo Maker

How to take a passport photo that doesn't get rejected

Passport photo rejections are boring and expensive. You wait, you pay, you get told the head is two millimetres too small, and you start again. Almost all of it comes down to a handful of things, and most of them you control with your phone and a plain wall.

The two rules that cause most rejections

Head size. Every country specifies how tall your head must be in the printed photo, measured from the bottom of your chin to the top of your head — including hair. Too small and you look lost in the frame; too large and the crop cuts into you. This is the single most common reason a photo comes back, and it is exactly what the guides in the tool above are for.

Background. Plain, light, uniform, no shadow. A white or off-white wall works. Stand a good arm's length away from it so your own shadow does not fall on it — this is the mistake almost everyone makes, and the shadow is invisible to you while you take the photo.

Getting the shot right

• Use natural light, facing a window. Overhead lights cast shadows under the eyes and nose. Never use flash — it flattens your face and bounces off the wall behind you.
• Have someone else take it. An arm's-length selfie distorts your features — noses come out larger, ears smaller. Hand the phone to someone standing about two metres away and use zoom rather than stepping closer.
• Face the camera squarely. Both ears roughly visible, shoulders level, head not tilted.
• Neutral expression, mouth closed. Most countries now reject smiles. Eyes open, looking straight at the lens.
• Nothing on your head unless it is worn daily for religious reasons — and even then your full face from the bottom of the chin to the top of the forehead must be visible.
• Glasses are now rejected by the US, the UK and many others. Take them off. It is simpler than arguing about glare.

Printing it yourself

This is where the money is. A photo booth or a pharmacy charges for a set of four or six. A 4 × 6 print at any kiosk or online photo service costs a fraction of that — and a single 4 × 6 sheet fits six photos, whether you need 35 × 45 mm or 2 × 2 inches.

Two things matter when you print:

Print at actual size. Turn off "fit to page", "scale to fit" and "borderless" — any of them will resize your photo by a few percent and put the head height out of specification. If you are uploading to an online print service, choose the 4 × 6 product and do not let it crop.

Use photo paper. Plain office paper is usually rejected outright. Glossy or matte photo paper both work; some authorities prefer matte, and none object to it.

The sheet this tool produces has thin grey cut lines between the photos. Cut just inside them with scissors or a guillotine.

What this tool does and does not do

It handles the geometry: the exact print dimensions in millimetres, the head height within the official range, and a sheet laid out at true scale so nothing shifts when you print.

It does not judge your photo. It cannot tell you that you blinked, that the light is uneven, that there is a shadow behind your left shoulder, or that your expression will be read as a smile. Some paid services claim to check all this automatically; in practice those checks are unreliable, and a confident "approved" that turns out to be wrong is worse than no check at all. Look at your photo against the rules above and use your judgement.

Why your face never leaves your computer

Most passport photo websites ask you to upload your photograph, process it on a server, and often watermark the result until you pay. Some retain the image. A photograph of your face, tied to a document application, is about as personal as a file gets.

This one crops on a canvas inside your browser. The photo is read from your device, positioned by you, and written back as a download. It is never transmitted, which is also why there is no account and no watermark on the result.