How to: Make Your Own Passport Photos at home

How to Make Your Own Passport Photos at Home

In the UK we have the privilege of being able to take our own passport photographs. Most of us will pop down to the local automated machine and have passport photo size prints inside ten minutes – but at the cost of at least £4 per set, photographing the whole family for a batch of passport renewals in time for that holiday can quickly add up.

It’s a cost, though, that can be quickly and simply avoided by setting up a shoot at home, working some Photoshop magic to your images, and printing on some decent quality photo paper at the right  size. What Digital Camera’s money saving guide shows you how to shoot your own passport sized photos quickly and easily at home…

Make Your Own Passport Photos - Official guidelines

Shooting passport photographs demands that you stick to some stringent rules. A neutral expression with closed mouth, no red-eye, clear and sharp focus, with a neutral white/cream/grey background, posed face-on to the camera, are all a must. There should be no shadows on the face, no facial-coverings and, after printing on photo paper, the images must have no tears, creases or marks. It’s worth checking the guidelines as they can change frequently (www.ips.gov.uk/passport).

Make Your Own Passport Photos - Shooting

Find a light-coloured wall as a background and shoot your passport photo subject using the portrait orientation. Avoid using the flash as this increases the likelihood of red-eye and background shadows. Daylight is best, with as equal a balance as possible to avoid shadows on the face and background. Take several photos as to get the best possible image, avoiding smiling and blinking. You could even do this yourself if you use the camera’s self-timer and rest on an appropriate surface or, if you have one, use a tripod. When reviewing your images, ensure that they are well exposed – you don’t want underexposure, as the detail of the face will be lost in the shadows, even with post-production work. Your surroundings are important and need to be neutral. Stand by something red, for example, and it has a luminescence that will reflect red light back onto you. So snaps from down the local boozer wont do – you have to specifically shoot for the right posed shot.

Make Your Own Passport Photos - Post-production

As the background of your passport photo image is an off-white shade, it’s easy to use PhotoShop or Elements to make the subject stand out. Use the Magic Wand or Quick Select tool (the latter on newer versions) to select your background and simply press the delete key to remove it – leaving you with a white background. As rules have changed, it's best to fill this layer at a 5-10% grey to avoid any rejection. You may be left with some tricky areas around the hair but these can be ‘picked off’ by zooming in and gently deleting (use the Eraser tool) offending areas, or changing the tolerance of your selection tools and re-selecting specific areas. Don’t worry about being too precise, as the image you are working on now is of a much larger size than the final print will be, so there is a lot of give in how much detail will be picked up in the final print. Once you’re happy select Layer > Flatten Layer.

Make sure you have enough brightness to give the impression of being shot under bright light, like a flash. But don’t wash out details or blow highlights though. You can bring up the Levels palette by hitting Ctrl+L on the keyboard. Or go to Image > Adjustments > Levels. Now bring the left and right markers under the histogram towards the centre to increase contrast, and move the centre marker for brightness.

Make Your Own Passport Photos - Readying for print, passport photo size

Passport guidelines on passport photo size state that a photo should be 35mm wide and 45mm tall. Make a new file in PhotoShop (File > New) at this exact size, at 300dpi. Select your already edited image from the other window and, using the Move tool, click and drag into your new window. If it’s too large use the Free Transform tool (Edit > Free Transform) whilst holding down the Shift key when dragging to resize to ensure correct proportion. You may need to zoom out to find the edges if it’s really big.

Once you have your passport image fitted to the window, you’ll want to add a border and multiply the image. To remove any overlap outside of your 35x45mm window, then click Select > All and then Image > Crop, then hit D on your keyboard to restore your colour palette back to default. By using Image > Canvas Size it is possible to extend the border – add 5mm per side to make a 40x50mm (4x5cm) image. To make your set of four images, use Canvas size again to double the width and height to 80x100mm, now Copy and Paste your image three times and use the Move tool to arrange them. Make sure they are copies as when applying for a passport it’s important to send a couple of identical images – there can’t be different poses in a single application. Now flatten again into one layer (Layer > Flatten Image).

Make Your Own Passport Photos - Printing   

When printing your passport photos at home, print onto decent glossy photo paper, at the exact same size as onscreen (100%) and with the best possible resolution. If your printer prompts you to resize to page or make any other changes then ignore these prompts. Once they are printed, use a ruler to measure each picture to ensure the size is still 35x45mm. Then cut them up with scissors and you’re all done – passport photos made at home on a budget.