Passport Size Photo Maker

A form asks for "two recent passport size photographs", a portal asks for a JPG of a certain pixel size, and a photo studio charges for a strip of eight. This page does all three from one phone photo: it crops the face to the shape the size needs, saves a single photo for uploading, and lays copies out on a sheet you can print at home or at a shop. Here are the sizes, what they are in pixels, and how to get the print right.

How to make a passport size photo

1. Choose the photo at the top of the page. A phone photo taken against a plain light wall works best.
2. Pick the size. "Passport size, 3.5 × 4.5 cm" is selected to begin with. For an Indian passport upload choose 630 × 810 px; for a small photo choose stamp size; for a visa choose 2 × 2 inch.
3. Frame the face. Zoom and drag until the head, from the chin to the top of the hair, fills the dashed oval with the eyes level.
4. Choose the paper for the print sheet, 4 × 6 inch or A4, and how many copies you want.
5. Download the single photo for uploading, and the sheet as a JPG or PDF for printing.

The sizes, in centimetres and pixels

A size in centimetres needs a DPI before it becomes pixels: pixels = centimetres ÷ 2.54 × DPI. The print sizes on this page use 300 DPI, the usual print standard, and the JPG carries that number so a print shop reads the intended size.

The 630 × 810 photo is the same shape as 3.5 × 4.5 cm, 7 units wide for every 9 high, at a finer 457 dots per inch. That is why one crop serves both: frame the face once, and the upload and the print come out the same picture.

How big are the files? We put a 3,000 × 4,000 portrait of our own, 3.63 MB with a plain light background, through each size with no KB limit:

Each took about a second. When a form sets a KB limit, type it and the photo keeps its pixels while the JPG quality comes down: with a 50 KB limit, the 630 × 810 photo came out at 38.2 KB, still at 630 × 810.

The 2 × 2 inch size is square, so a crop made for 3.5 × 4.5 cm does not fit it. Switching the size redraws the frame in the new shape, and the face has to be framed again.

The Indian passport photo, 630 × 810 pixels

With Global Passport Seva Version 2.0, Indian missions abroad began asking for photos that meet the ICAO standard used for machine-readable passports. Their notices list the same points:

• a colour photo of 630 × 810 pixels;
• a white background, with no shadows on the face or behind it;
• a close-up of the head and the top of the shoulders, with the face filling most of the frame;
• the full head from the top of the hair to the bottom of the chin, centred and not tilted;
• eyes open and clearly visible, no hair across them, no glare from glasses, and glasses taken off where they reflect;
• a natural expression with the mouth closed;
• no editing by computer software.

The 630 × 810 option on this page makes exactly that pixel size. The oval in the frame marks where the head goes, from chin to crown about three-quarters of the height of the photo, the close-up of head and top of the shoulders the notices describe. For a passport, the background and the light are the parts that cause rejections, and they are fixed when the photo is taken, not afterwards.

Applicants in India usually have the photo taken at the Passport Seva Kendra itself. The 630 × 810 photo matters most where a mission or an outsourcing centre asks you to upload one, so check the notice of the office you are applying through.

How many copies fit on a sheet

The sheet puts a 2 mm gap between copies, for the scissors, and keeps a margin from the edge of the paper: 3 mm on 4 × 6 inch photo paper and 5 mm on A4, where most home printers cannot print right to the edge. Both ways round are tried and the paper is turned when that fits more.

Eight passport-size photos on one 4 × 6 inch print is the same strip a studio sells, and a 4 × 6 print at a photo shop costs far less than a studio sitting. For fewer copies, type the number; the rest of the sheet stays white.

The arithmetic for the first row: a 4 × 6 inch sheet turned sideways is 152.4 mm across, 146.4 mm inside the margins. Four photos of 35 mm and three gaps of 2 mm take 146 mm, so four fit and a fifth would need 183 mm. Down the sheet, 101.6 mm less the margins leaves 95.6 mm, room for two rows of 45 mm and one gap.

Printing at the right size

The sheet is a picture of the whole paper at 300 DPI: 1,200 × 1,800 pixels for 4 × 6 inch, and 2,480 × 3,508 pixels for A4. Printed at its own size, every photo on it measures exactly what was chosen.

Choose "Actual size" or 100% in the print dialog, never "Fit to page". Fitting shrinks the sheet to the printer's printable area or stretches it to the edge, and every photo changes size with it, often by a few per cent. A passport-size photo printed at 97% is 3.4 × 4.4 cm, which a strict counter can refuse.

At a photo shop, hand over the 4 × 6 inch JPG and ask for a 4R or 4 × 6 print, without borders or cropping. The file is already the shape of the paper, so nothing is cut off.

At home, use the PDF. Its page is the paper's own size, so a printer set to actual size places the photos where they belong. Load glossy photo paper if you have it; plain paper works for a form that only needs a photo pasted in.

Measure one photo with a ruler after printing. If it is not 3.5 cm across, the print was scaled, and the print setting is the place to fix it, not the file.

Taking a photo that passes

Most rejections come from the photo, not the size. A few habits avoid them.

Stand against a plain white or light wall, about a metre from it, so your shadow falls on the floor rather than behind your head. This page leaves the background as it is: cutting a person out with software tends to blur the hair and the ears, and passport rules ask for unaltered photos.

Face a window in daylight. Light from the front, not from a lamp to one side, keeps both halves of the face evenly lit and the eyes clear of shadow.

Hold the camera at eye level, about 1.5 metres away, and use the zoom on this page to fill the frame. A phone held close to the face makes the nose look larger, which is why the passport notices ask for the distance.

Look straight at the camera with the mouth closed, eyes open, and no hair over the eyes or the eyebrows. Take glasses off if they catch the light.

Wear something darker than the wall, so the shoulders stand apart from a white background, and avoid white shirts for the same reason.

What this tool assumes

• The crop always has the shape of the chosen size, so a photo of another shape loses some of its edges; zoom and drag choose which part stays.
• The single photo is saved as a JPG at the exact pixel size shown. An optional KB limit lowers the JPG quality, never the pixels.
• The sheet is a 300 DPI JPG, with the same picture in a PDF whose page is the paper's own size. Copies are 2 mm apart, with optional thin grey cutting lines just outside each photo.
• The background, the light and the expression are left exactly as photographed. The tool does not whiten backgrounds or retouch faces.
• The photo stays on your device, and the saved files carry no location or camera details. The tool has no link with the Passport Seva programme, any mission, or any exam body, and their notices can change.