What the tool does to your photo
A passport photo is a small print with strict rules: an exact physical size, enough pixels to print that size sharply, a plain background, and a head placed where the examiner expects it. This guide explains how those pieces fit together, how many pixels each common size needs, how many copies fit on a print sheet, and where to check the rules for your country before you rely on the result.
When you press Create photo, four things happen in this order.
- Your crop is applied. If you did not open the crop editor, the photo is cropped from the centre to the shape of the chosen size.
- The cropped area is scaled to the exact pixel size for that size and DPI. For 35 × 45 mm at 300 DPI, that is 413 × 531 pixels.
- Any transparent area is filled with the background colour, and the photo is saved as a high-quality JPEG with the DPI written into the file.
- If you chose a sheet, the copies are tiled onto a white A4 or 4 × 6 inch page, with thin dashed cut lines if Border is on.
What it does not do matters just as much. It does not detect your face, judge your expression or replace the wall behind you. The Background colour only fills pixels that are already transparent. If your photo was taken against a busy background, run it through the Remove background tool first, which also works on your device, choose white or the colour you need there, and then bring the result here.
Worked example: from millimetres to pixels
A physical size becomes pixels by converting it to inches and multiplying by the DPI. There are 25.4 millimetres in an inch.
- Width of a 35 × 45 mm photo at 300 DPI: 35 ÷ 25.4 × 300 = 413.39, rounded to 413 pixels.
- Height: 45 ÷ 25.4 × 300 = 531.496, rounded to 531 pixels.
- Inch sizes are simpler: 2 × 2 inches at 300 DPI is 600 × 600 pixels, and at 600 DPI it is 1200 × 1200.
The area you crop needs at least that many pixels, or the photo is enlarged and looks soft. A recent phone photo of your head and shoulders, taken from a sensible distance, usually has plenty. A small copy saved from a messaging app may not, so always start from the original camera file.
Sizes, pixels and copies per sheet
Each preset size has a fixed pixel count at each DPI. The sheet layout keeps a quarter-inch margin around the page and a small gap between photos, so the number of copies that fit depends on the photo size.
| Size | 300 DPI | 600 DPI | Max on A4 | Max on 4 × 6 in | Used by (registry) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35 × 45 mm | 413 × 531 | 827 × 1063 | 30 | 6 | UK, Ireland, Australia, Germany, France, Pakistan, Japan and many more |
| 2 × 2 in (51 × 51 mm) | 600 × 600 | 1200 × 1200 | 15 | 2 | USA, India |
| 50 × 70 mm | 591 × 827 | 1181 × 1654 | 9 | 1 | Canada, Brazil |
| 33 × 48 mm | 390 × 567 | 780 × 1134 | 25 | 4 | China |
| 40 × 60 mm | 472 × 709 | 945 × 1417 | 16 | 4 | Greece, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Vietnam, Indonesia |
| 26 × 32 mm | 307 × 378 | 614 × 756 | 56 | 12 | Spain |
The copy counts do not change with DPI, because the margins and gaps scale with it. The sheet itself is always white, whatever background colour you chose for the photo.
Choosing the DPI
The DPI options are 200, 300 and 600. 300 is the default and is the usual choice for photo prints. 600 gives a sharper print only when the cropped area really has that much detail, and it produces a larger file. 200 gives a smaller file, which can help when an online form sets a tight size limit. Whichever you choose, the printed size stays the same, because the DPI written into the file tells the printer how large to print it.
How to make a passport photo step by step
- Take the photo facing the camera, in front of a plain light wall, with soft even light from the front. Ask someone else to take it from a little distance if you can, because close-up selfies distort the shape of the face.
- Open the Passport photo tool, or the page for your country, which selects the size and background for you.
- Add the photo. Pick a Photo size, or choose Custom and type the width and height in mm, cm or inches.
- Press the crop button on the file card. The crop box is locked to the photo shape and shows a dashed oval for the face and two dashed lines near the top and bottom. Drag and zoom until your head sits inside the oval, then press Apply.
- Choose the DPI and the Background colour.
- Under Output, choose Single photo for an online form, or A4 sheet or 4×6 in sheet for printing, then set the number of copies and whether to draw borders.
- For an online form with a file-size cap, keep Single photo and turn on Also limit file size. The pixel size and DPI stay the same; only the compression changes.
- Press Create photo and download the JPEG.
Printing the sheet at the right size
The sheet file is made at the exact paper size for your DPI. At 300 DPI, an A4 sheet is 2481 × 3507 pixels and a 4 × 6 inch sheet is 1200 × 1800. A correct file can still print at the wrong size, so check these points.
- Print at 100 percent or Actual size. Fit to page rescales everything slightly, and a 35 mm wide photo can come out a few millimetres too small.
- Select the matching paper in the print dialog: A4 for the A4 sheet, 4 × 6 inch photo paper for the small sheet. The 4 × 6 sheet is exactly the shape of a standard 4 × 6 print, so a print shop or kiosk should not need to crop it.
- Measure one photo with a ruler before cutting. If it is off, fix the scaling setting rather than the file.
- Cut along the dashed lines with a ruler and a craft knife for straight edges.
Troubleshooting
- The background is grey, patterned or shadowed. The Background option does not repaint a wall. Retake the photo against a plain surface, or use Remove background and fill with the colour your country asks for.
- The head looks too small or too large. Reopen the crop editor and zoom in or out. How much of the frame the head should fill is set by each country, so check the official page.
- The print looks soft. The cropped area had fewer pixels than the target size. Use the original photo and crop less tightly, or move the camera a little closer next time.
- The sheet has fewer copies than I asked for. The Copies number is limited to what fits on the page. Two 2 × 2 inch photos fit on a 4 × 6 sheet; choose A4 for more.
- The online form rejects the file. If it is the file size, turn on Also limit file size and enter the limit. If the form asks for a pixel size rather than a print size, use the Resize tool with exact pixels instead.
Check the official rules before you print
Each country preset uses the size and background recorded in the ShrinkLab spec registry, which lists the official source for every country and when it was last checked. All entries were last checked in October 2026. Rules on head size, expression, glasses, head coverings and how recent the photo must be differ between countries and change over time, and this tool does not check any of them. Open the official page linked from your country's preset or from the specs page and read it before you print or upload.
Making it yourself compared with a booth, studio or upload service
A photo booth or studio gives you a finished print and someone who takes these photos every day, and some offer a retake if the photo is rejected. You pay more per set and you have to go there. Upload-based passport photo websites crop the image on their servers, so a clear, front-facing photo of your face, often linked to your email address and payment details, is stored on someone else's system. That is exactly the kind of image used for identity checks, so it is worth keeping to yourself.
Here, cropping, scaling and the sheet layout all run in your browser, and the photo is never uploaded. In exchange, you take the photo, check it against the official rules and make sure it prints at actual size. If you are unsure whether a photo will pass, a studio remains a reasonable fallback.