How to make a passport-size photo on Android

The sizes the app offers

There are five presets, and the screen shows each one with its dimensions in millimetres next to a short note about where it applies. These are the labels as they appear in the app, on version 1.1.2.

Two of them are the same rectangle with different names, and that is intentional: Aadhaar photographs use the same 35 × 45 mm shape as an international passport photo, so the preset exists to save you having to know that.

• Passport (35×45mm) — noted as the international standard.
• Indian Passport (35×35mm) — noted against ICAO / BIS:14051.
• US Visa (2×2 inch) — noted as the DS-160 requirement; 51 × 51 mm.
• Aadhaar (35×45mm) — noted against the UIDAI specification.
• Photo (4×6 inch) — noted as a standard print size; 102 × 152 mm.

What the crop decides, and what it does not

The app finds the largest face in the photo and builds the biggest crop window of the right proportions that still fits the image, then positions that window so the face sits centred horizontally and about 40% of the way down — the usual passport framing, with the head high in the frame. The result is scaled to 300 DPI for whichever size you picked, given a thin grey edge line, and saved as a JPEG.

If no face can be found, nothing is saved and the screen tells you so. That is the most common failure, and it is almost always the photo rather than the app: a face turned too far to the side, heavy shadow, or a picture too small to work with.

What the app does not do is judge whether the photo is acceptable. It will not measure the height of your head against the frame, check the background, or tell you that your expression will be rejected. Those rules come from whoever is issuing the document, and the photo has to satisfy them before you crop it.

• Face centred horizontally, positioned about 40% down the frame.
• Output at 300 DPI for the chosen millimetre size.
• Saved as a JPEG beside the original, which is left alone.
• No face detected means no file, with an on-screen message.

Things to fix before you take the photo

These are ordinary photography points rather than app features, and they decide whether the photo passes. Check the published specification for the document you are applying for, because the details differ between authorities and change over time.

Stand a step away from a plain, light, evenly lit wall so no shadow falls behind you. Face the camera straight on, head level, with a neutral expression and both eyes open and visible. Have someone else hold the phone at eye level, a little way back, rather than holding it at arm’s length — a close phone camera distorts the face. Avoid glare and reflections on glasses; several authorities now ask for photographs without glasses at all. Keep hair clear of the eyes, and skip patterned or white clothing that merges into the background.

Printing the result

ScanCrypt does not build a print sheet: there is no option to tile eight copies onto a 4 × 6 print. What you get is one image at 300 DPI, which is exactly what a photo shop needs — hand it over and ask for the number of copies you want on a standard print.

The Photo (4×6 inch) preset is a standard print size rather than an ID size, so it is the odd one out in the list. Use it when you want the picture itself printed at that size, not when you want a sheet of passport photos.