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TakPhoto

Frequently asked questions

Fifteen answers about taking the photo, what you pay, what happens to your picture, and what studios and developers get.

This page has not been translated into this language yet, so it is shown in English. The English version is the reference.

General

What does TakPhoto actually do?
It turns an ordinary photo of you into a file that fits the exact rules of the document you name. You upload a picture, our servers straighten it, remove the background, crop it to the required size and head height, run automatic checks, and give you a digital file plus a print sheet where the document allows one.
Will my photo definitely be accepted?
We cannot promise that, and nobody honestly can. We crop and check against the published requirements, and for documents marked verified we have read the official source ourselves — but the office or the online system you submit to makes the decision, and it may apply judgement we cannot see.
Do I need an account?
No. You can upload, pay and download without ever giving us more than the email address you want the file sent to. An account is optional and only adds one thing: seeing your orders on another device, and deleting everything at once.

Taking the photo

Can I use my phone camera?
Yes, and most people do. Stand about 1.5 metres from a plain light wall, face a window so the light comes from in front of you, hold the phone at eye level, and use the back camera if someone can press the button for you — the front camera is fine too, and we never save a mirrored image.
Do I need a white wall behind me?
No — we replace the background with the colour your document requires. A plain wall still helps the cut-out come out clean around hair, so avoid standing in front of a bookshelf, a patterned curtain or a doorway if you can.
How do I photograph a baby?
Lay the baby on a plain white sheet and shoot straight down from above, with no shadow across the face and nobody else in the frame. Most countries relax the neutral-expression and open-eyes rules for infants, and our checks relax with them for documents that say so.

Payment and refunds

Do I pay before I see the result?
No. Every photo is processed first and shown to you with a watermark, together with the list of checks it passed, and you pay only if you are happy with it. Retaking the photo before you pay costs nothing, however many times you do it.
Who appears on my bank statement?
Paddle, which is our seller of record for payments made on the website: it issues your invoice, handles VAT for your country and is the name your bank will show. If you buy inside the iOS or Android app, the charge comes from Apple or Google instead.
Can I get a refund?
Yes, in full, whenever the fault is ours: a broken file, a wrong size, a double charge, or a rejection caused by our crop that you cannot fix with a re-upload. We do not refund a change of mind after you have downloaded a working file, because you saw it before paying.

Privacy

How long do you keep my photo?
Thirty days after a paid order, then it is deleted automatically, files and all. An order you never paid for is deleted within 24 hours, and you can delete anything immediately from the order page — that removes it from our database and our file storage at once.
Do you use my photo to train AI?
Never, and there is no exception hidden in the terms. Your photo is not sold, not published, not shared with any third party for their own purposes, and not used to train, tune or evaluate any model — ours or anybody else's.
Where is my photo processed?
On our own servers in Frankfurt, Germany, inside the European Union, with the files in private storage in the same region. Nothing is sent to an external AI service, and the metadata your camera embedded — GPS, device, timestamps — is stripped the moment the photo arrives.

Studios and API

What do photo studios get?
A dashboard with a shared credit wallet, customer records, your own branding on the print sheet, a team with roles, and an intake link with a QR code so a walk-in customer can send their photo from their own phone. Plans and credit packs are on the pricing page.
Is there an API?
Yes, for businesses that need photos inside their own product: a REST endpoint that takes an image and a document code and returns the finished files, billed from the same credit wallet as the dashboard. Keys, limits and retention are set per organisation, and API orders keep nothing by default.
Can I print several photos on one sheet?
Yes — every order that has a physical size includes a print sheet laid out for 10×15 cm, 4×6 in or A4 paper, with cutting guides. Take the file to any print shop or print it at home on photo paper at the stated resolution.