ID photo sizes and background colours

Taking the photo is the easy part. What makes people go back and forth is size and background colour. Get either wrong and the photo is rejected no matter how good it looks.

Common sizes at 300 dpi

Sizes are quoted in millimetres, with the pixel equivalent at 300 dpi in brackets:

25×35 mm (295×413 px) — CVs, student and staff cards
33×48 mm (390×567 px) — passports, some national documents
35×45 mm (413×531 px) — many professional certifications
35×49 mm (413×579 px) — graduation and title certificates
51×51 mm (600×600 px, square) — US visa
45×45 mm (531×531 px, square) — Japanese visa
22×32 mm (260×378 px) — driving licences
26×32 mm (307×378 px) — social security cards

Why millimetres? Because different systems quote things differently — some give millimetres, some pixels, some a minimum ("width no less than 295 px"). The conversion is mm ÷ 25.4 × 300 = pixels. So 25 mm becomes 25 ÷ 25.4 × 300 ≈ 295 px.

Picking the background colour

Background colour is specified numerically, not vaguely. Standards also differ between countries and agencies, so check before you commit:

White — national ID, driving licences, passports, most visas, social security cards, general application forms. The widest, safest choice when you are unsure.
Blue — graduation and degree certificates, staff passes, CVs, professional reviews. Commonly around #438edb.
Red — some national documents and internal company ID. Commonly around #d9001b.

If the receiving organisation gives you an exact value (for example "background must be pure white, RGB 255,255,255"), use theirs, not the common default.

Four compliance rules people forget

Head proportion — head height is usually required to occupy 60–70% of the frame, with 3–5 mm of space above the hair. Too small a head, or hair touching the top edge, both fail.
Front-facing, no headwear — no hats or hair ornaments (religious exemptions aside), and hair must not cover eyebrows or ears.
Glasses — usually permitted, but the lenses must be free of glare and the frames must not obscure the eyes. Many systems simply require no glasses at all, so check first.
Even lighting — no harsh shadows on the face and no shadow cast on the background. This is exactly why selfies usually fail: a front-facing phone camera paired with direct light throws a shadow onto the wall.

Taking a usable photo at home

Find a plain white wall and, in daylight, stand facing the window so the light falls on your face — not with the window behind you, which leaves you in silhouette. Use the rear camera (better optics than the front one) and either ask someone to shoot or use a tripod, with the lens roughly at eye level. Stand about a metre away and frame down to the chest; crop later.

Avoid clothing that matches the background: no white shirt on a white background, no blue on blue. A plain dark top is the safest choice.

Producing the final file

With the photo taken, the ID photo maker lets you pick the size, swap the background, adjust the framing, render at 300 dpi, and compress to whatever limit the application system enforces (200 KB and 50 KB are both common). If you need several copies, "Generate print sheet" lays them out on a 6×4 inch page you can have printed and cut apart — far cheaper than ordering prints individually.

Everything runs in your browser. The photo is not uploaded, and no account is needed.