What the Photo Tool does
“Photo Tool is intended for cropping your photo only when you are applying in person or by mail.”
The Photo Tool is run by the State Department. You choose a photo from your device, the tool crops it, you can adjust the crop by hand, and you download the result. The State Department’s visa photo pages say it crops to exactly 600 × 600 pixels. Its page also carries photo tips with good and bad examples for size and position, pose and expression, clothing and glasses, shadows and lighting, the background, resolution and children.
Make your U.S. passport photo here
Choose a photo or take one. It’s checked on this phone.
Free check. $9.95 if it passes: files and a 4 × 6 print sheet.
Full refund if it’s rejected. Send us the rejection notice within 60 days of receiving it, and within 6 months of your order. Conditions
When to use it
| Application | The Photo Tool |
|---|---|
| U.S. passport, in person or by mail | Yes. This is what its page says it is for. You still print the crop at 2 × 2 in. |
| U.S. passport, online renewal | No. Its page says not to use it, and the online application has its own crop step. |
| U.S. visa (DS-160) | Its page links to the online visa application, and a 600 × 600 pixel square fits the DS-160’s pixel range. |
Not for online renewal
“US Citizens: Do not use this tool if you are renewing your passport online.”
Online renewal takes the photo inside the application instead. Its upload page says “You can reposition or crop your photo in the application,” and it takes a JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC or HEIF file of 54 KB to 10 MB. U.S. passport renewal online: photo requirements has every rule for that file.
What to get right before you crop
A crop decides where the edges of the photo fall. Everything inside them is the photo you took.
So the rules about the photo itself have to be met when you take it. From the State Department’s passport photo page:
- A plain white or off-white background with no shadows, texture or objects.
- Even light on your face, with accurate skin tones and no shadows.
- Facing the camera, head straight, eyes open and mouth closed.
- Glasses off, and no hat unless for religious or medical reasons.
- Sharp, in color, taken in the last 6 months, and never edited, filtered or made with AI.
A crop can bring the head to the right size only if the photo was taken from far enough away. The page puts the camera “several feet (1.2 m) away from you”. How to take a passport photo at home covers the setup.
Printing the crop
A paper application takes a printed photo of 2 × 2 in, on matte or glossy photo-quality paper. A 600 × 600 pixel square printed at that size comes out at 300 pixels per inch. Make sure it prints at exactly 2 × 2 in: a photo counter asked for a 4 × 6 print will enlarge a square picture to fill the paper unless it is laid out on a 4 × 6 sheet first. How to print passport photos on a 4 × 6 sheet covers the settings.
How Studioless differs
Studioless is a private company, separate from the State Department and its Photo Tool. If your photo is already right and you apply in person or by mail, the free Photo Tool may be all you need.
Our U.S. passport photo is for when you’d like the photo measured and checked. It finds your chin, eyes and the top of your head, measures the head against the rule, checks the light, the background and the tilt, and gives you a cropped JPEG and true-size 4 × 6 and 5 × 7 in print sheets for paper applications for $9.95. For online renewal, keep your original, unedited photo and crop it inside the government application. The check is free, and you pay once your photo passes our check. If a passport, visa or ID office rejects a photo we made, we refund 100% of the order or make a new photo free. Send us the rejection notice within 60 days of receiving it, and within 6 months of your order. See the full refund terms.