Can I take my own passport photo with a phone?

Yes. The US and most other countries accept photos you take yourself, as long as they meet the rules: taken within the last 6 months, plain light background, even lighting, neutral expression, no glasses (mandatory in the US), and no filters or retouching. Do not shoot an arm's-length selfie — the US explicitly disallows it and the perspective distorts your face. Use the rear camera on a timer or have someone else take it from 1.5-2 meters away.

What size is a passport photo in pixels?

It depends on the document. At the standard print resolution of 300 pixels per inch, a US 2 x 2 inch (51 x 51 mm) passport or visa photo is 600 x 600 pixels, the 35 x 45 mm size used by the UK, Schengen visas, and much of Asia is 413 x 531 pixels, and Canada's 50 x 70 mm is 591 x 827. For the US visa online upload specifically, the requirement is a square JPEG between 600 x 600 and 1200 x 1200 pixels under 240 KB.

Does the FileTinker passport photo tool make my background white?

No. It crops and resizes only — it does not retouch your photo or replace a real background, so you need to shoot against a plain light wall. The one exception: because the output JPEG is rendered onto a white canvas, a photo that already has a transparent background (for example a cutout from a background removal tool) comes out on pure white. Note that some authorities, including the US, object to digitally altered photos, so a real plain wall is the safest option.

Can I smile or wear glasses in a passport photo?

Keep it neutral: mouth closed, eyes open, facing the camera straight on. Some countries tolerate a slight natural smile, but visible teeth are a common rejection reason. Glasses have been banned in US passport photos since November 2016, and countries that still allow them reject any glare on the lenses or frames covering the eyes — taking them off is the safe choice everywhere.

Why does my printed passport photo come out the wrong size?

A digital photo is only pixels; it has no built-in physical size, and a downloaded crop may not carry print-size metadata. Printing software therefore guesses, often scaling the image up to fill the page. Set the physical print size explicitly in the print dialog (51 x 51 mm for the US, 35 x 45 mm for the UK and Schengen), print on photo paper, and measure the result with a ruler before submitting.

Is my photo uploaded when I use the FileTinker tool?

No. The passport photo tool runs entirely in your browser: the image is read, cropped, and re-encoded on your own device, and the result is offered back as a download. Nothing is sent to a server, which matters for a photo of your face that is headed for an identity document.

How to Take a Passport or Visa Photo at Home (Free, With Your Phone)

2. Juli 20267 Min. Lesezeit

A studio passport photo costs $15-20 for two prints. Your phone camera is more than good enough to produce the same thing for free: the hard parts are not the camera, they are the background, the lighting, and getting the crop to the exact size your document requires. This guide walks through the rules that almost every country shares, how to set up the shot so it does not get rejected, and how to crop the result to the precise dimensions in your browser without installing anything or uploading your face to a server.

The rules almost every country shares

Passport and visa photo specs differ in size, but the substance is nearly universal. The photo must be recent, usually taken within the last 6 months. You face the camera straight on with your full face visible, eyes open, mouth closed, and a neutral expression (a slight natural smile is tolerated in some countries, teeth are not). The background is plain and light with no shadows, patterns, or objects. Lighting is even, with no shadow across your face or behind your head. Nothing covers your face or hairline: no hats, no headphones, no hair across your eyes, and in many countries no glasses at all — the US has banned glasses in passport photos since November 2016. Head coverings are generally allowed only for religious or medical reasons.

The sizes fall into a handful of standards. If you know your document's physical size, you know almost everything you need:

US passport, US visa, and India passport: 51 × 51 mm (2 × 2 inches), a square.
UK, Schengen visa, Australia, Japan, Germany, Philippines, South Korea, New Zealand: 35 × 45 mm.
Canada and Brazil passports: 50 × 70 mm.
China visa: 33 × 48 mm. UAE visa: 43 × 55 mm.
Head size matters too: the US wants the head to measure 25-35 mm (1 to 1 3/8 inches) from chin to crown within the 51 mm frame. Most 35 × 45 mm standards want the face to fill roughly 70-80% of the height.

Set up the shot: wall, light, camera

The photo itself takes two minutes if you set up correctly. Find a plain, light-colored wall — white or off-white for the US, and note the UK prefers a plain cream or light grey. Stand about half a meter (18 inches) in front of it, not against it, so your body does not cast a shadow onto the wall behind you.

Face a window in daylight. A window in front of you lights your face evenly; a window beside you puts half your face in shadow, and an overhead ceiling light puts shadows under your eyes and chin. Turn off the flash — it creates harsh shadows and red-eye, both rejection reasons.

Have someone else take the photo, or prop the phone up and use the self-timer. An arm's-length selfie distorts your face (your nose looks bigger because it is closest to the lens) and the US explicitly tells applicants not to submit one. Use the rear camera, hold the phone at eye level 1.5-2 meters away, and shoot in the phone's normal photo mode with every filter and beauty mode off. Frame loosely: capture your head and shoulders with generous space around them, because you will crop to the exact size afterwards and extra margin gives you room to work.

The rejection reasons that actually happen

Passport agencies reject a meaningful share of submitted photos, and it is almost always one of the same few problems. Check your shot against this list before you crop anything:

Shadows on the wall behind your head or across your face. This is the most common failure, and it comes from standing too close to the wall or lighting from one side.
Glasses. The US rejects them outright; countries that still allow them reject any glare on the lenses or frames crossing the eyes. Safest move everywhere: take them off.
Wrong expression. Visible teeth, a squint, raised eyebrows, or a tilted head all get flagged. Aim for the bored, neutral face on your current ID.
Head too small or too large in the frame. This is a cropping problem, not a camera problem, and it is exactly what a size-locked crop tool prevents.
Blurry, grainy, or low-resolution images, often from using the front camera in dim indoor light, or from cropping a tiny head out of a full-body photo.
Filters, beauty mode, and heavy retouching. Skin-smoothing that phones apply by default can be enough for a rejection.
A photo that is too old, or wearing a white shirt against a white wall so your shoulders blend into the background.

Crop it to the exact size in your browser

Once you have a good shot, the remaining problem is mechanical: crop it to the exact aspect ratio and pixel size your document requires. FileTinker's passport photo tool handles this in the browser, so your photo never leaves your device — worth caring about for an image of your face that is about to be attached to a government identity document. It is free, with no signup and no watermark.

Pick your document from the preset list — 15 are covered, including US, UK, India, Canada, Australia, Japan, Germany, Philippines, South Korea, New Zealand, and Brazil passports plus US, Schengen, China, and UAE visas — and drop in your photo (JPG, PNG, WebP, and iPhone HEIC all work). The crop box is locked to that document's exact aspect ratio, so you cannot accidentally produce a 2 × 2.1 photo. A dashed oval guide shows where your head and shoulders should sit; drag the box or nudge it with the arrow keys so your head and shoulders fit inside the oval. Following the guide gets the head-size proportion close to what most standards ask for, but the tool does not measure your head — check your document's specific head-size rule before you print. The output is a JPEG at the exact pixel size for your document: 600 × 600 for the US 2 × 2 inch formats, 413 × 531 for the 35 × 45 mm standards, and so on.

One thing the tool deliberately does not do: it does not retouch your photo or replace the background. If the wall behind you is busy or dark, the honest fix is to re-shoot against a plain wall. If that is impossible, FileTinker's Remove Background tool can cut you out first — it runs a portrait matting model entirely in your browser and returns a PNG with a transparent background, and the passport tool renders onto a white canvas, so the transparent area comes out pure white in the final JPEG. Use that route with eyes open, though: some authorities, the US included, object to digitally altered photos, so a real plain wall is always the safer submission.

Pixels, not DPI: getting the print size right

Here is the detail most guides skip. A digital photo has no physical size, only pixels. The presets are sized so that printing at the document's stated dimensions gives you 300 pixels per inch, the standard photo-print resolution: 600 pixels across 2 inches is 300 per inch, and 413 × 531 across 35 × 45 mm works out the same. That is plenty of detail for an acceptable print.

But the downloaded JPEG does not carry embedded print-size metadata, so your printing software will not automatically know the photo should be 2 × 2 inches — many programs will happily blow it up to fill the page. When you print at home, set the physical size explicitly in the print dialog (51 × 51 mm, 35 × 45 mm, whatever your document needs) and print on glossy or matte photo paper, then measure the result with a ruler before you trust it. Easier still: most pharmacy and supermarket photo kiosks and online print services accept a digital file and offer a passport-size print product for well under what a studio charges, and standard 4 × 6 inch prints cost pennies if you want spares.

Uploading digitally? Check the portal's numbers

More and more applications skip paper entirely, and online portals publish their own pixel and file-size limits. The US visa (DS-160) upload is the best-known example: it wants a square JPEG between 600 × 600 and 1200 × 1200 pixels, under 240 KB. The US visa preset's 600 × 600 JPEG meets the minimum dimension, and at that size the file typically lands well under the cap; if a portal enforces a tighter kilobyte limit, a pass through an image compressor gets you there.

Do check the specific portal before you submit, because a few want more pixels than the print size implies. The UK's online passport service, for instance, asks for a digital photo of at least 600 × 750 pixels — larger than the 413 × 531 that a 35 × 45 mm print requires — so for that route you need a higher-resolution crop rather than the print-sized file. The presets here are built for the print dimensions, which is what paper applications and most visa uploads ask for, but the portal's stated numbers always win. Thirty seconds of reading the requirements page saves a rejected application.