How to make a passport-size photo with a white background

Many application forms ask for a recent photo on a plain white background: university and school admissions, job portals, recruitment exams, staff ID cards and society registrations. If the only good photo you have was taken against a wall, a curtain or a street, you can replace the background with white in the browser, size it, and resize it to the portal’s limits without the photo leaving your phone or laptop.

First: is an edited photo allowed?

Check this before anything else, because the answer decides the method.

• Passport and visa applications usually require an unedited photo. The UK’s rules for digital passport photos, for example, say the photo must be unaltered by computer software, taken against a plain light-coloured background, and not cropped by you. Replacing the background is an alteration. For these, take a new photo against a plain wall or use a photo booth.
• Many other forms only care about the result. Exam, job and ID-card forms commonly specify a white or light background, a size in pixels and a file size, and say nothing about how the background was achieved. If the instructions say “white background” and nothing about editing, replacing it is normally what people do.
• When in doubt, follow the form’s own instructions. Rules change, and each organisation sets its own.

Take a photo that will cut out cleanly

Even with background replacement, a good source photo makes the result look real:

• Face the camera straight on, with your shoulders level and a neutral expression, unless the form says otherwise.
• Stand a metre or more from the wall so you do not cast a shadow on it.
• Use soft, even light from the front, such as a window facing you. Light from one side leaves half the face in shadow, and no background change fixes that.
• Keep hair off the face and away from a similarly coloured background, which is the hardest edge for any cutout.
• Take the photo from shoulder height, with your head and shoulders in the frame and some space above the head.
• Do not use beauty filters. Many forms reject photos that change your appearance.

Replace the background with white

1. Open Remove Image Background and keep Best edges selected.
2. Drop, paste or choose the photo. iPhone HEIC photos work as they are.
3. When the result appears, look at the hair and shoulders. Drag the Original slider across to compare with the photo.
4. On the Size tab, choose Passport-size photo, 35 x 45 mm. This sets the background to pure white and frames the photo from the top: shoulders to the edges, a small margin above the head, and the lower body cropped. If a form asks for a square photo, choose Square photo, 2 x 2 in instead.
5. Check the small preview on the Size tab. The head should sit near the top, with the whole face and the top of the shoulders visible. The framing is a starting point, not a measurement of your face, so check it against the form’s example.
6. If strands of the old background remain around the hair, open the Edges tab, choose Erase, and paint over them. Restore brings back anything that was cut away.

Resize it for the portal

Most portals set a pixel size and a maximum file size, often in kilobytes. On the Size tab, press Resize it for an exam form. The finished photo opens in the exam photo and signature resizer, which has the common Indian exam and recruitment limits built in and lets you enter a custom size and file size for any other portal. The photo moves between the two tools on your device only.

Alternatively, download the photo as JPG from the Size tab and use Resize Image to set exact dimensions.

Common reasons a form rejects the photo

• The file is too large or too small. Portals often set both limits. The exam resizer shows the final size before you download.
• The dimensions are wrong. Some portals want exact pixels, others a range. Read the numbers carefully; width is usually given first.
• The background is not plain. A soft grey corner or a leftover strand of hair against white is enough for some checks to fail. Zoom in before uploading.
• The face is too small. If the framing leaves too much space, the face may fall below a minimum size. Retake the photo closer to the camera.
• The photo is not recent or looks edited. Forms that ask for a recent photo may reject an old one, and heavy smoothing or filters can be flagged.

Privacy

A face photo is personal data. FileGizmo’s background remover runs its model in the browser tab, so the photo is not sent to a server for processing. The result page lists any other site the page contacted after you added the photo, and the photo is only uploaded when you attach it to the form yourself.