OpenPhotoId · Documents
Take a passport photo at home with your phone
You can take a passport photo at home with the phone you already have. OpenPhotoId is a free passport photo maker that runs in your browser: it opens the front camera, replaces the background, crops to your document's rules and checks the result. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no sign-up and no watermark.
What you need to take a passport photo at home
- A phone, tablet or computer with a camera, or a photo someone takes of you.
- Even light on your face. A window works, direct sun does not.
- A little space, and a plain white or light wall behind you. Some documents, the US passport among them, do not accept a replaced background.
Five steps
- Pick the document. The size, background and head-height rules come with it.
- Tap “Take a photo”. It opens the front camera directly. The camera picture stays in the browser tab. Face the camera straight on, with your head inside the oval.
- Frame it. Head and shoulders in frame, with a little room above your hair, and a neutral expression.
- Read the checklist. Twelve checks run on the finished file, each with its value and the band it was judged against.
- Save it. A JPEG for uploading, or a print sheet for a photo shop.
If the browser is not allowed to use the camera, allow it from the icon in the address bar, or choose a photo instead.
What the checks catch in a passport photo at home
A passport photo at home usually goes wrong in a few known ways, and the checks measure them:
- Head tilt. Measured from the line between your eyes. For a US passport the limit is 5°.
- Centring. How far your face sits off the centre line, against the document's tolerance.
- Lighting symmetry. The difference in brightness between the two sides of your face. In the US example the warning starts at 17%.
- Blur. Sharpness across your face, with a minimum.
- Background. How flat it is and how close to the required colour, measured on the photo itself, never on filled-in edges.
If your photo is cropped tighter than the document needs, the app extends the edges with the background colour and tells you. A photo with more room around your head looks better. What each check measures is in what a passport photo check can measure.
Printing a passport photo you took at home
Choose a 4×6, 5×7, A4 or Letter sheet. The web app and the Android app tile your photo on it with cutting guides, made for printing at a photo shop. “Sharpen for printing” restores the crispness that resizing costs; it recovers detail that is there and does not invent any. A lossless PNG with the right DPI is there too. Documents that are only uploaded, such as the US DV Lottery, have no print size, so there is no sheet for them.
A 4×6 in sheet holds six 2 × 2 in photos or eight 35 × 45 mm ones; both show the count for your document before you save. Print it at actual size: order a 4×6 in sheet as a 4×6 in print, or at home choose “Actual size” or 100% scale, not “Fit to page”. Then measure one photo with a ruler before you cut along the grey lines. Every count is in photos per sheet, by size.
Sizes differ by document: 2 × 2 inches for the US passport photo, 35 × 45 mm for most others. See passport photo size for all 21.
When a passport photo at home is not the right choice
- Canada requires a passport photo taken in person by a commercial photographer or studio, not edited in any way.
- Australia: the Australian Passport Office advises against online passport photo services and apps, and recommends a professional photo provider.
- South Korea does not accept a photo whose background was removed or replaced with editing software. Take it against a plain white background.
- United States: the State Department says “Do not change your photo using computer software, phone apps or filters,” and for online renewal “Do not use any kind of filter or retouching tools to change your appearance.” Take it against a plain white or off-white wall; the app keeps that background and checks it.
- A portal can still reject a photo for reasons no software can measure, such as an expression or a reflection on glasses. Read the checklist rather than assuming a pass.
Phones it runs on
It is built for a phone. The first visit downloads the two models with a progress bar; after that they are on your device and the app works offline. It is tested on iPhone and iPad with iOS 26 and on Android with Chrome. iOS 17 cannot start the models, and says so. There are also apps for macOS, Windows and Android; the iPhone and iPad download is coming back soon.
Everything is free, with no account. Your photo is held in memory while you work on it and forgotten when you close the tab, so a passport photo at home stays at home.