How to Prepare a Passport Photo at Home: Size, DPI and File Size
Forms for passports, visas, exams and scholarships often ask for three different things at once: a physical size such as 35 × 45 mm, a pixel size such as 600 × 600, and a file size limit such as 50 KB. They are related but they are not the same, and mixing them up is the most common reason a photo is rejected.
Three measurements, three meanings
| Measure | What it controls | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Pixel size | How many dots wide and tall the image is | 413 × 531 px |
| Print size | How big it is on paper (pixels divided by DPI) | 35 × 45 mm |
| File size | Storage space, which depends on pixels and JPG quality | Under 50 KB |
DPI is the link between pixels and print size. At 300 DPI, 35 × 45 mm works out to about 413 × 531 pixels. If a portal only asks for pixels or KB, DPI does not matter.
Take a better photo first
Use a plain, light wall and even light from the front, with no shadows on the face or the background.
Hold the camera at eye level and stand back a little, then crop in later. Zooming digitally on a phone loses quality.
Use the largest original you have. A big photo can be reduced cleanly, but a small one cannot be enlarged without looking soft.
Resize and crop to the required size
- Open the photo in the Passport Photo Maker & Image Resizer.
- Enter the required width and height and pick the unit your form uses. Untick "Keep original proportions" if the shape differs from your photo.
- Drag the crop box so the head is centred, and drag a corner to zoom in or out.
- Check the result preview, and use the head-position guide as a rough help only.
⚠️ Always follow the official rules. Head size, background colour, expression and recency of the photo differ by country and by application. A tool cannot know what your authority accepts, so check their requirements before you submit.
Get under a file size limit
Choose JPG or WebP and enter the maximum size in KB. The tool tries different quality levels and keeps the highest one that fits. If it still does not fit at the lowest quality, reduce the pixel size. PNG files cannot be shrunk this way, so use JPG for photos.
💡 Brightness before size
Fix a dark photo before you compress it. A small brightness or contrast change is easy, and heavy compression makes dark areas look blocky.
Print several copies on one sheet
Printing one photo at a time wastes paper. In the print sheet section, choose your paper (A4, Letter, 4 × 6 or 5 × 7 inch), and the tool fits as many copies as it can with thin cut lines. Download the JPG or PDF and print at 100% scale. Do not choose "fit to page", because that changes the photo size.
Resize, crop and compress your photo
Any size in px, mm, cm or inches, with a KB limit and a print sheet. Free, and your photo never leaves your device.
Open Passport Photo Maker →