Print passport photos at home on a 6-inch sheet

Many applications still want physical photos. Rather than paying a shop for each attempt, you can lay several copies onto a single 6-inch print and cut them out — which also means you can reprint without repeating the whole process.

The arithmetic behind a print sheet

A standard 6-inch photo print is 1200 × 1800 pixels at 300 dpi, or roughly 102 × 152 mm. That is the size most print shops and home photo printers default to, and it is why 300 dpi is the number to work with: at 300 dpi, one millimetre is 11.81 pixels.

• A 35 × 45 mm photo is 413 × 531 px.
• A 2 × 2 inch photo is 600 × 600 px.
• A 33 × 48 mm photo is 390 × 567 px.
• A 50 × 70 mm photo is 591 × 827 px.

A 1200 × 1800 sheet fits six 35 × 45 mm photos with margin to spare, or four 2 × 2 inch photos.

Print at the right size, not "fit to page"

This is the step that quietly ruins home printing. Most print dialogs default to Fit to page or Scale to fit, which stretches your carefully sized sheet to the paper. A 35 mm wide photo can come out at 38 mm — enough for a strict consulate to reject it.

Set the scale to 100%, or choose the exact paper size with no scaling. Then verify with a ruler after the first print. Measure the photo itself, not the sheet.

Paper and printer settings

• Paper: glossy or matte photo paper, 200 gsm or heavier. Plain office paper smudges and looks dull, and several authorities explicitly exclude it.
• Quality: highest available. Draft mode produces banding and soft edges.
• Colour: standard or photo colour mode, with colour management on. Letting the printer "enhance" skin tones can shift the background off the required colour.
• Borders: none. Several countries state explicitly that the photo must have no border.

Cutting accurately

1. Print one test sheet and measure before cutting anything.
2. Use a craft knife and a steel ruler against a cutting mat. Scissors follow the printed line only approximately, and a millimetre or two matters.
3. Cut just outside the outline, then trim to the printed line in a second pass. Two light passes beat one heavy one.
4. Leave no white edge visible. Print shops that print with a border produce photos with a tell-tale white sliver.

If you do not have a knife and mat, cut generously and ask any print shop to trim the stack — the cutting is mechanical and shops do it well.

Producing the sheet

Our ID photo tool generates a 6-inch print sheet at 1200 × 1800 px, 300 dpi, automatically laid out with the correct photo dimensions for the preset you choose. Load the file, pick your document format, and the tool handles the sizing and spacing.

Confirm the exact requirements for your document in the specification library first — particularly the background colour, which differs between the US (white) and Schengen (light grey).

One last check before you post anything

Hold the printed photo against the specification table and confirm the dimensions with a ruler, then re-read the recency requirement. Several countries demand a photo taken within a specific window — one month for UK passport applications — and a beautifully printed photo that is four months old still fails.