If you're looking for an easy and cost effective way to take
and print your passport photo, you've come to the right place.
I am going to show you step by step how you can take your passport photo
using just your phone and for less than a couple of dollars.
Let's go
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If you have looked into either renewing your passport or getting
one for the very first time you know that getting a passport is not cheap.
So, having to pay an additional $16 to $20 to get your passport photo taken at
a place like CVS or Walgreens by one of their cashiers only adds to the expense.
Plus, there's no guarantee that your photo will even be accepted because as it turns out,
that cashier may or may not know all the passport photo requirements needed to make a good photo.
So with that being said, let's walk through the process of taking your
very own passport photo and save you some money.
Let's first go through the requirements that
need to be met in order for your passport photo to be accepted.
Number one, you need to submit one color photo taken in the last 6 months.
Number two, use a clear image of your face.
Do not use any filters that you would commonly use on social media.
Number three, have someone else take your photo or use a tripod if you have one.
No selfies are allowed.
Number four, if you wear glasses those will need to be removed for your photo.
Number five, use a white or off-white background without any shadows, texture or lines.
Number six, have a neutral expression with both eyes open and mouth closed.
Number seven, your photos should be taken in clothing
that you would normally wear on a daily basis.
No uniforms.
And number eight, you cannot wear a hat or head covering unless for religious or medical purposes.
And if you fall in that category, you must provide a signed statement or signed doctor's note.
Number nine, you are allowed to wear jewelry or
facial piercings as long as they do not hide your face.
Now that we know the requirements, let's get set up to take our photo.
The first thing you are going to need is a white background.
If you don't have a white background in your house you can do what I'm doing and
hang up a white poster board that I bought from the store for a dollar.
Or if you have a white sheet that you can hang up that will work as well.
Now, if you already have access to photo editing software that can remove the background in your
photo you can try to use that if you know for sure that it will be of good quality.
Most of them tend to cut out pieces of your body which will cause your photo not to be accepted.
But for this video I'm assuming you don't have that capability and so we'll just keep it simple.
You don't want to be in a dark room taking your photo.
In fact, the best spot would be next to a window or somewhere with natural lighting.
Now it doesn't have to be completely perfect as we will be able to make some simple edits to the
picture later on but you want to make sure there are no shadows that will show up in your photo.
If you are getting shadows, you can move your body until those shadows are eliminated or you
can add a light to help eliminate those shadows and help brighten up your face.
Once you have your lighting set you are now ready to take the photo.
Here you will need to either ask someone to take the photo for you or in my case I
have a tripod that I'll be using to take the photo and then I'll be using the 10-second
delay on my phone in order to give myself time to get in position for the picture.
You just want to make sure that your phone is vertical and that there's some space between the
top of the frame and the top of your head and that your shoulders are in the frame.
For my phone that's about an arms length away.
I would recommend taking multiple photos and then
choosing the best one that you would want to use as your passport photo.
If there happens to be too much space at the top of the photo I can use basic
editing functions on my phone by selecting edit and then selecting the crop function.
And here I can reduce the amount of space at the top of my photo.
Just make sure you are not using any other edit functions to alter your
photo or use any filters as it may cause your photo not to be accepted.
Now that we have the photo that we want to use, let's head to the website IDphoto4you.com.
This is a completely free website to use and what
this site will do is turn your photo into printable passport size photos.
Now the US State Department has a free passport photo tool that you can use as
well that will crop your photo into the appropriate passport size dimensions.
The only problem is that once you have your passport photo there is
no good way to be able to print it since a passport photo is only a 2x2 photo and
the last time I checked there's no ability to print just a 2x2 photo.
IDphoto4you solves that problem by putting four 2x2 passport photos
onto a 4x6 photo that you can then print out.
I'll link the US State Department's passport photo
tool in the video description if you would like to use it.
It's pretty straightforward and it will automatically crop your photo
for you in the right dimensions with the ability to download that photo.
IDphoto4you will do the same thing but with the ability to
download a printable copy of your passport photo.
So let me walk you through these steps and how IDphoto4you works.
The first step is to make sure your photo is in the right format.
It does have to be a JPG or JPEG image file and has to be less than 10 megabytes.
Once we have verified that our photo meets those requirements
we can now upload that photo onto the website.
At the upload section you just want to verify that the country is correct and that your
photo is set for passport and visa and that the print size indicates 10x 15 cm or 4x6 inches.
Then you want to choose the file you want to upload.
In my case I will select my photo that I took earlier from my photo library then
you'll need to check all these boxes to accept the terms and conditions and then select upload.
Now in case you are worried about IDphoto4you saving your image they
do have a note at the top of their website indicating that your image
file will be deleted from their server within 6 hours after upload.
Or there's a link to delete your file immediately after you have created your passport photo.
So no worries there.
Once my photo is uploaded I can now adjust the brightness and contrast of my photo.
Since my photo is just a little dark, I'll increase the brightness and maybe
add a little more contrast to make my face a little more brighter.
Once I'm satisfied with the result I will hit next.
My photo will now have two green rectangular boxes and the object here is to get the top
green box placed on the top of my my head and the lower box over my chin.
I'm just using my fingers here to adjust the boxes but if you
are having trouble you can just use the controls at the bottom of your photo.
Once I have the boxes aligned, I'll tap on make photo.
You will then just scroll towards the bottom and below the image you'll see a
countdown to when your photo will be downloadable.
You can see the preview of your passport photos above and as you can see there will
be four 2x2 photos that you will be able to print.
Once the time I reaches zero, you will just tap on download and for
me this will be downloaded to my files folder on my iPhone.
Or if you are using a different type of phone look in your my files or files
manager to find your photo and then I can save it again to my photo library.
Now that I have my passport photos downloaded, I'm now ready to print them out.
The one requirement you will need to know about printing your photo
is that it has to be printed on either matte or glossy photo quality paper.
If you don't have the ability you print out your
photo at home you can have CVS or Walgreens print out your photo.
Either of these stores have same day pickup.
Or if you're an Amazon Prime member and use prime photos
you can have Amazon print them out for you and mail them to your house.
In this example I'm just going to have CVS to print out my photo.
I will just do a search for CVS photo.
My first option is the CVS photo official site so I'll tap on that.
Once the site comes up you want to tap on the menu button at the top left corner.
This will give you a list of options to choose from.
From here you want to select prints.
Then under prints the first option you should see is prints and enlargements.
Select this option then tap get photos.
For me it'll give me a couple of options, either from my phone or photos that I've saved on Google.
I'll select phone and select photo library and I'll choose
the photo I just created from IDphoto4you.
At this point I don't need to add any more photos so I'll tap done.
It will now give me a preview of the photo I want printed.
Just verify that it indicates that this photo is a 4x6 photo that will be printed out.
I can also choose to print more than one copy if I like.
I am now ready to print my photo so I will tap order now.
From here I will select same day pickup and choose a CVS location where I want to pick up my photo.
Once I have chosen my pickup location and entered my information you can
see my total amount at 42 cents and from here I'll tap checkout.
And once I enter my information I will tap place order and a confirmation will be sent to me.
It will also send me a notification once my photo
is ready to be picked up which was less than an hour for me.
And here is the end result.
As you can see it is indeed a 2x2 photo size
and I'll just cut out one of the photos to use for my application.
If you are going to be applying for a passport for the first time or have to fill out a DS11 form,
you will not attach it to your application but if you are renewing your passport and are filling out
a DS82 form you will attach it to the form by applying four staples vertically where shown.
And that will do it.
I now have a passport photo and it only cost me a $1.42.
If you found this video helpful make sure to give the video a like and
share with someone who might find this information helpful as well.
Thank you so much for watching and I hope to catch you again in a future video.