Crop a photo to passport proportions

How to use it

1. Choose your photo.
2. Pick the ratio you need — square for 2×2 inch, 35:45 for most other countries, or free-form.
3. Drag the frame over the part of the picture you want to keep.
4. Download the cropped photo.

Nothing is uploaded. This runs on your device, so we never receive your image. Need the whole photo made to spec instead? Use the passport photo maker.

Aspect ratio and pixel size are two different things

A ratio is a shape. A size is a measurement. Cropping only sets the shape. A 12-megapixel phone photo is 4032 × 3024 pixels; crop it square and you have 3024 × 3024. That is the right shape for a US form and well past the DS-160's 1200-pixel ceiling and 240 KB limit. The shape passed, the file still fails.

Some portals also publish a pixel box that is not the printed shape. The UK's digital minimum is 600 × 750, which is 4:5, while a UK passport photo prints at 35 × 45 mm, which is 7:9 — crop at 35:45 and export at least 600 × 771. China's COVA form wants exactly 354 × 472 pixels, a 3:4 shape no 35 × 45 preset produces.

Cropping changes the measurements, not just the framing

Passport rules do not measure your head in pixels. They measure it as a share of the frame, chin to the top of your hair. On a US 2 × 2 photo that share must be 50% to 69% of the image height, and your eyes must sit 56% to 69% of the way up from the bottom edge. A 35 × 45 mm photo is tighter: 32 to 34 mm of head on a 45 mm frame, roughly 71% to 76%.

Because it is a share, dragging the frame inward does not simply zoom. It shrinks the number you are dividing by. Pull in to lose an untidy background and your head fraction climbs, so a face that measured a comfortable 62% can cross 69% and fail for the opposite reason. Moving the frame up or down shifts the eye line at the same time, so a crop that fixes one number often breaks the other.

Cropping cannot fix a photo taken too close

Hold a phone at arm's length and your nose is much nearer the lens than your ears are. Nearer things record larger. You get a heavy nose and forehead, ears that shrink away, a jaw that is not quite yours. People blame the camera; it is the distance.

Cropping only selects pixels that already exist, so it cannot undo that, and neither can resizing. For a US passport or visa photo you cannot retouch it out either — the State Department prohibits changing a photo with software, phone apps, filters or AI. The only fix is to take it again with the camera several feet back.

Crop, resize and compress solve different errors

Three rejection messages, three different tools. If a form says the image must be square, or refuses the shape, that is a crop. If it says the dimensions must be 600 to 1200 pixels, that is a resize. If it says the file must be under 240 KB, that is compression. Cropping shrinks the file too, since fewer pixels means fewer bytes, but it is a blunt way to hit a KB ceiling.

Do them in that order, crop then resize then compress. Every JPEG save re-encodes the whole picture, so bouncing between the three quietly degrades it. If a crop turns out wrong, go back to the original rather than re-cropping your last export.