How to make a passport photo at home

Make a passport photo in six steps

1. 1

   Open the photo

   Go to lilcactus.app and choose File› then Open…, or drag the photo onto the window. To follow along exactly, open the sample photo from this page.

2. 2

   Crop to 35 × 45 mm

   Right-click the crop button in the toolbar (or press and hold it) and choose Crop. On the options bar, set Ratio to Custom, type 35 for W and 45 for H, and tick Delete cropped pixels, so the cut-off parts don’t travel with the photo later.

   Drag a frame over the photo with the face in the middle, leaving room above the hair. In the sample the frame starts at the top edge of the photo, so the top of the hair sits about an eighth of the way down, and the chin about a sixth of the way up from the bottom edge. Drag inside the frame to move it, or drag a corner to resize it; the 35 : 45 shape is kept. Press Enter or ↩ to crop.

   

   

   

3. 3

   Set the print size and check the head

   Choose Image› then Image Size… Keep Resample ticked. Set Units next to Width to Millimeters, type 300 for Resolution and press Tab, then type 35 for Width and press Tab. The height follows at 45 mm and the summary reads 413 × 531 px. Choose Bicubic Sharper and click Resize.

   Each country sets how tall the head should be. In the UK it is 29 to 34 mm from the chin to the crown; for a US 2 × 2 in photo, 1 to 1 3/8 in (25 to 35 mm) from the chin to the top of the head. Rules differ on whether hair counts, so check your own country’s rules.

   To measure it, press M (or right-click the selection button and choose Marquee Select) and drag a rectangle from the top of the hair to the bottom of the chin: the status bar shows its size. At 300 ppi, 11.8 pixels make 1 mm, so the sample’s 376 px is about 32 mm, inside both example ranges. Choose Select› then Deselect afterward.

   

   

   

4. 4

   Start the sheet and copy the photo onto it

   A 6 × 4 in print at 300 ppi is 1800 × 1200 px. You lay the photos out on a slightly smaller sheet first and add a white margin at the end, so no photo touches the edge of the paper. Choose File› then New…, set Units to Pixels, type 1740 for Width, 1140 for Height and 300 for Resolution, and click Create.

   Click the photo’s tab above the canvas and choose Layer› then Duplicate Into Other Document; if other documents are open too, a small dialog asks which one to copy into, so choose Untitled and click Duplicate. Then click the Untitled tab. The photo is on the sheet, in its top-left corner, as a layer called Background (copy).

   

   

5. 5

   Fill the top row

   Choose Layer› then Duplicate Layer, then Layer› then Align› then Right Edges: with one layer selected, Align lines it up with the edge of the sheet, so the copy moves to the top-right corner. Choose Layer› then Duplicate Layer twice more, for four photos in all.

   In the Layers panel, click the top photo row and Shift or ⇧-click the lowest one, just above Background, to select all four. Choose Layer› then Distribute› then Horizontal Spacing: the four photos spread out evenly across the top. Then click the top photo row on its own and choose Layer› then Merge Down three times, so the row becomes one layer.

   

6. 6

   Add the second row and the margin, then print or export

   Choose Layer› then Duplicate Layer, then Layer› then Align› then Bottom Edges: the copy of the row drops to the bottom, giving eight photos. Choose Image› then Canvas Size…, type 1800 and 1200, keep the center Anchor and click Resize: a 30 px border (about 2.5 mm) is added all around. It is transparent in the editor and turns white in a JPEG.

   To print it yourself, choose File› then Print… Lil Cactus prints the sheet at its real size from its resolution, so at 300 ppi it comes out at 6 × 4 in. On 6 × 4 in photo paper, choose landscape orientation and set the margins to none in the print dialog; on larger paper it prints at full size, ready to cut out. For a photo lab, choose File› then Export› then JPEG…, click Export and order a 6 × 4 in (also called 4 × 6) print. Then cut along the white gaps.

   

For an online application

Online forms usually state their own pixel size. Export straight after the crop in step 2, before step 3 changes the size: choose File› then Export› then JPEG…, tick Resize output to meet an exact size, and click Export. If the form’s size has a different shape, crop with that W : H ratio instead; if it asks for more pixels than your crop has, start from a larger photo, because enlarging adds no detail.

Other sizes

Use the same steps with the ratio and size your rules ask for. At 300 ppi:

For 2 × 2 in photos, set Units to Inches and Width to 2 in step 3. Six of them fill a 6 × 4 in sheet edge to edge, with no room to cut, so use a 7 × 5 in print: make the sheet 2040 × 1440 px in step 4, use three photos across (two duplicates and Merge Down twice in step 5), and set Image› then Canvas Size… to 2100 × 1500 px in step 6.

Check the photo against the rules

• Head size: measure it as in step 3. If it is too big or small for your rules, choose Edit› then Undo until the photo is back to its full size (four times after measuring: Deselect, the selection, Image Size and the crop) and draw the frame larger or smaller.
• Background: most rules ask for a plain, light background without shadows. The sample’s wall has a soft shadow on the right; standing a step away from the wall, with the light in front of you, avoids it.
• Edits: rules usually forbid retouching or changing the face. Some, such as the UK’s for printed photos, also say the photo must not be cut down from a larger picture, so check yours.

Fix common problems

The sheet shows the whole uncropped photo

Delete cropped pixels was unticked, so the hidden parts came along. Close the sheet, undo the crop and image size in the photo, tick the box, and crop again.

Duplicate Into Other Document is grayed out

Only one document is open. Create the sheet first (step 4), then click the photo’s tab.

The print comes out the wrong size

File› then Print… prints the sheet at its real size from its resolution: 1800 × 1200 px at 300 ppi is 6 × 4 in. If the print came out smaller, either the paper’s printable area was smaller than the sheet, so it shrank to fit, keeping its shape, or the print dialog’s Scale was below 100%. In the print dialog, set Scale to 100%, choose landscape orientation and set the margins to none, or print on larger paper and cut the sheet out. If it came out larger than 6 × 4 in, check Resolution in Image› then Image Size…: it should read 300. When you print the exported JPEG from another app, print it at 100% (actual size), not “fit to page”.

Coming from another editor

Photoshop

The Crop tool with W × H × Resolution, Image › Image Size…, and File › New with a 4 × 6 in preset.

GIMP

The Crop tool with a fixed aspect ratio, then Image › Print Size…

Passport photos: questions and answers