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DIY Passport Photos at Home: A Step-by-Step Guide

September 13, 2026

Passport photo counters exist because getting the framing, background, and size right by hand is fiddly. Head too big, eyes too low, a shadow on the wall behind you, and the application bounces back. A drugstore kiosk fixes that, for a fee and a trip. Your phone can do the same check without either.

What a compliant passport photo actually requires

For a US passport, the rules aren’t about looking nice — they’re pixel-level:

  • 2×2 inch photo
  • Head height between roughly 50–69% of the frame
  • Eyes positioned in a specific band from the bottom of the frame
  • Plain white or off-white background, no shadows
  • Neutral expression, no glasses glare

Missing any one of these gets the photo rejected, which is the whole reason a wizard beats eyeballing it.

How the wizard walks you through it

Purgli’s Passport Photo tool takes a photo you’ve already got (or a fresh one) and runs it through a guided pipeline rather than a single crop box.

  1. Measuring. The app finds you in the photo, removes the background, detects your face, and measures head/eye proportions against the spec — shown as a short progress sequence, not a black box.
  2. Initial check. If the framing is workable, you get a quick “checks complete” card before you touch anything. If your head’s too large in frame or there’s no room above/below, it tells you plainly and offers retake or a manual crop instead of guessing.
  3. Frame. A crop canvas with head/eye guides overlaid — drag to fit, or tap “Reset to suggested” if you’ve nudged it too far.
  4. Background. Swap in White or Off-White, with an edge-softness slider so the cutout doesn’t look pasted in. There’s also a “keep original background” toggle if you’d rather crop only.
  5. Review. The composite renders full-size against a compliance checklist, so you can see exactly what passed before saving.
  6. Save. You get the individual 2×2in photo plus a 4×6in print sheet — multiple copies laid out with hairline cut guides — ready to hand to any photo printer.
Purgli passport photo wizard measuring stage, showing progress through background removal and face detection
The wizard narrates what it's checking — background removal, face detection, proportion measurement — instead of just spinning.
Purgli passport photo crop screen with head and eye alignment guides
Head and eye guides overlay the crop, so you can see the compliance band while you adjust — not just a generic square.
Purgli passport photo background screen with White and Off-White swatches and an edge softness slider
Swap the background to plain white or off-white; soften the cutout edge so it doesn't look cut-and-pasted.

What you get at the end

The save screen shows both your finished ID photo and a 4×6 print sheet with several copies arranged and hairline guides for cutting. That’s the same sheet format most print kiosks and pharmacy photo counters expect — hand it over as a file or print it at home if you’ve got a photo printer.

Purgli passport photo review screen showing the compliance checklist
A checklist confirms head size, eye position, and background before you commit to saving.
Purgli passport photo save screen showing the finished 2x2 photo and a 4x6 print sheet with multiple copies and cut guides
Save gives you the single photo and a 4×6 sheet, laid out with cut guides, ready for printing.

What size does it support?

Today the wizard is built around the US passport spec — 2×2in, the head/eye proportions above, white or off-white background. If you need a different country’s passport or visa photo size, this isn’t the tool for that yet; check your country’s official photo requirements before using any app for a non-US passport.

Is it free?

Yes — fully. There’s no paywall step anywhere in the passport flow, no account required, and no Pro upsell tucked into save or export. It’s one of a handful of tools in Purgli (alongside the free Recycle Bin and exact-duplicate cleanup) that stays completely ungated.

The takeaway

A passport photo rejection costs you a trip back to the counter and another wait. Running the shot through guided measurement, a compliance checklist, and a proper 4×6 print sheet before you leave the house catches the usual mistakes — bad head size, off background, misplaced eyes — for free, in a few minutes.

Get Purgli on Google Play, or see the Passport Photos feature page.

Screenshots needed for this post

The image paths above are placeholders under site-features/passport/ — none of these exist in the asset bucket yet. Capture and upload these before publishing:

  1. Passport-Measuring.webp — the “Measuring” progress screen (background removal / face detection / proportion measurement steps visible).
  2. Passport-Frame.webp — the crop canvas step with head/eye alignment guides overlaid on a sample photo.
  3. Passport-Background.webp — the background step showing White/Off-White swatches and the edge-softness slider.
  4. Passport-Review.webp — the review screen with the compliance checklist visible.
  5. Passport-Print-Sheet.webp — the save screen showing the finished 2×2 photo alongside the 4×6 print sheet with cut guides.

(Optional, if you want a 6th: the “Initial checks complete” card, or the blocked-state retake/manual-crop screen — good for a future “why did my passport photo get rejected” follow-up post.)