With smartphone cameras’ quality increasing and their prices decreasing, taking a beautiful portrait is now more widely available than ever. However, taking a picture for your IDs or passports is another story: ever seen how people brag online about how good they look on their IDs, or the contrary, joke about how they’d love to take at least a decent one?

If you want to fall into the first group of people, this article may help you! 

Choose a suitable outfit

ID photos are supposed to identify you daily and focus on your face, so your outfit does not need to be too festive. “Daily clothing” doesn’t mean pyjamas, though: we recommend something like smart casual.

When it comes to color and patterns, it’s better to pick something plain that contrasts nicely with the surroundings so that there’s a clear line between you and the background. What color to choose? If the photo is black and white, wear dark-coloured clothing. If the photo is in color, choose shades that harmonize with your skin tone. Avoid colors that are too bright: they make your skin look pale. Be careful with green and purple tones, as their reflections can give your face an unhealthy shade.

Avoid head accessories, too — no need to wear hats or other accessories that are not functional. Head coverings that are religiously required are allowed, but your face should be fully visible. 

Wear natural makeup (if you need one)

We all want to look our best in our ID photo, so it’s understandable to want to touch up on your looks a bit. It’s permissible, even recommended, to wear some natural makeup. Make sure it’s nothing too bright or colorful: you need to be identified as you are. We also don’t recommend dramatic highlights and contouring too: though the colors may look neutral, they can alter your look, and highlights may even make photography difficult.

Choose your lipstick carefully. To make your lips look fuller, use lighter lipstick. It is better to refuse dark colors, otherwise, the lips will seem thin, and the facial expression will be angry. Lip contour should not be brighter or darker than lipstick.

A bright blue, green or black eyeliner pencil on a color photo looks rough. It is better to apply thin lines with liquid eyeliner.

What you should definitely do is to take care of is your skin tone. When taking pictures for documents, harsh lighting directed slightly overhead coarsens facial features, deepens wrinkles and highlights all the flaws. Use concealers and foundation to even out your complexion. Apply powder to the most glaring parts of the face in the nose and forehead areas.

Fix your hairstyle

When it comes to hairstyle, you should keep it neat and simple. If you have long hair, it may be useful to tie it back. In any case, your hair shouldn’t cover your face at all. This is why even if you don’t tie it back, ID photographers recommend you to at least tuck your hair behind your ears.

Keep hair accessories to a minimum, too. The ones you wear should be neutrally coloured and functional — to keep your hair in order. Keep the color and sparkles for other photoshoots! 

Check the detailed passport photo hair rules here. 

Rehearse your posture and facial expression

Try straightening your back and shoulders, but without any tension. Think confidence, and look straight forward, with your face parallel to the ground. Practice your pose in front of a mirror before shooting to make sure you get it right quickly.

When it comes to your facial expression, confidence is also key. You do need to keep a neutral facial expression: no bright smiles, but no pouting either! To avoid looking tired, raise the corners of your lips subtly and “smile with your eyes”.

It is better to take a photo while sitting in a chair, as this position allows you to fully relax your facial muscles.

Set up the lighting

If you’re taking your photo at home, it is most recommended to take a picture under daylight, as the lighting is usually more even this way and shows your natural skin color better. To avoid shadows on your background, you may add another light source facing the background.

You can also try different spots at home to see which ones are lit better. Usually, the spot opposite a window can be a great idea.

Position the camera properly

Have you ever tried taking a selfie with the front-facing camera just centimetres away from your face? If you have, then you know that your face looks silly under this angle. This is because the distance (or in this case, the lack of it) of your camera to your face dictates how your face is projected to the camera. Place the camera too close and it will be distorted. Of course, angle plays a part too.

So, put your camera about 1 to 2 meters from you, pointed straight towards your face, with the lens parallel to the ground, on your eye level. This way, you will get an undistorted picture with your face fully seen.

Edit your passport photo online with a professional tool!

You’ve done your best to look your best in your picture, now it’s time to think about the technical parameters that don’t depend on how you look and dress, like background, size, and proportions. Did you know that passport and ID pictures usually need to have its holder’s face occupy 70 to 80% of the picture?

As cameras usually do not capture in dimensions that are required from passport photos, let alone follow the head-to-frame proportions, it may be useful to hand this task to a professional tool like Visafoto, which takes into account these technical parameters. Besides backgrounds and sizes, this handy online photo tool can even handle subtle fixes such as head tilt and red eyes, and the result will be ready in practically an instant.

 

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