How to take a passport photo with an Android phone

Any Android phone made in the last few years has more than enough camera for a document photo. The difficulty is not the sensor — it is everything the manufacturer switches on for you. Beauty filters, scene detection and the ultra-wide lens all change a face, and a changed face is what an authority rejects.

Switch off what the phone adds

Beauty, retouch and "AI" modes off. Smoothed skin and a slimmed jaw are an edited image. It is the one failure we cannot undo for you, because the original detail is gone by the time the file is saved.

Main lens only. Use 1×, never 0.5×. The ultra-wide lens bends straight lines and widens whatever is nearest to it, which in a portrait is your nose.

Portrait or bokeh mode off. The artificial blur around the hair is read as manipulation, exactly as it is on any other phone.

HDR, night mode and scene detection can stay on or off; they make less difference than the light you are standing in. We accept JPEG, PNG and HEIC up to 25 MB.

Take it in seven steps

1. Pick a plain, light wall. Its colour does not have to match your document — we put the required colour behind you.
2. Stand about a metre in front of it. That distance keeps your shadow off the wall, which is the most common reason a photo is returned.
3. Turn to face a window. Daylight from the front. A window behind you makes the camera expose for the window and leaves your face in the dark.
4. Rest the phone at eye level, 1.2 to 1.5 m away. A shelf, a chair on a table, a stack of books — anything steady. Do not hold it at arm's length.
5. Switch to the rear camera and the 1× lens. Open the camera, swipe to Photo, tap 1× and check that no filter icon is lit.
6. Set the timer to ten seconds and step into place. Arms down, shoulders level, chin neither up nor down.
7. Take several and pick afterwards. Five or six attempts cost nothing; one blink costs the whole photo.