YepPhoto

Methods and Sources

YepPhoto is a tool for cropping and printing U.S. passport photos, not a photo editor. This page explains what it does to your photo, what it doesn't do, how the guide and the print sheets are worked out, and where the requirements come from.

What YepPhoto does to your photo

YepPhoto does only four things to your photo:

It doesn't replace or remove the background, retouch the face, adjust color or brightness, apply filters, fill in missing areas, rotate by any other angle, or enlarge the photo. It doesn't detect faces, measure your head, or check the background, and it doesn't tell you whether your photo will be accepted. The guide and the checklist are for you to check against.

The State Department asks that photos not be changed with software, apps, or filters, and its Passport Photos page doesn't say whether cropping or resizing counts as a change. Its Uploading a Digital Photo page says you can move and crop your photo inside the online renewal application. From that, this site reads the four steps above as not changing the photo. That's this site's reading, not a statement from the Department. The U.S. Department of State decides whether a photo is accepted.

Your photo isn't uploaded

Your browser reads the photo from your device, and the code on this page crops it, draws the guide, and makes the saved files with the browser's canvas, all on your device. YepPhoto has no server that receives photos. It doesn't keep the photo after you close the page, and it doesn't put it in the page address.

You can check this yourself. Open your browser's developer tools, go to the Network panel, then open a photo in the tool and save a digital photo or a print sheet. No request carrying your photo appears.

Any visit statistics this site keeps record only which feature was used, the kind of output, and the paper size. They never include the photo, its size, its file name, or your checklist answers.

Orientation and camera metadata

Phones often store a photo sideways with a note saying which way is up. Your browser applies that note when it opens the photo, and YepPhoto works on the photo the way it's shown. You can turn it further in 90-degree steps.

The digital photo and the print sheet are drawn fresh in the browser, so they carry no camera metadata (EXIF), such as the camera model, the date, or the location.

Some browsers add a small metadata block (EXIF) or a Photoshop block to a JPEG made from the canvas. YepPhoto removes those blocks from the saved digital photo and print sheet without changing any pixels.

Opening a photo

Choose a photo from your device, or take one with the camera on phones and tablets that offer it. On most computers, only the file picker appears.

Your browser opens the photo and turns it upright using the orientation note the camera saved, before you see it (see Orientation and camera metadata). The tool keeps the photo at its full size in this page only, and cuts the saved files from those original pixels, not from the smaller preview on the screen. To see that nothing is sent, follow the steps in Your photo isn't uploaded.

The tool opens JPEG and PNG files. It opens HEIC and HEIF files only when your browser can read them itself; YepPhoto doesn't add its own HEIC reader. If your browser can't open a HEIC photo, save or export it as a JPEG and choose that file.

When this site checked in October 2026, Safari on iPhone and iPad opened HEIC photos taken with the camera. WebKit's Safari 17.0 release notes list HEIC support from Safari 17, and Can I use lists no HEIC support in Chrome or Firefox on computers and Android. In Chrome or Firefox on a computer or an Android phone, save the photo as a JPEG first, then choose it. If your browser can't open a HEIC photo, the tool shows a message asking you to do that.

A PNG with transparent areas inside the crop isn't saved, because filling them with a color would add a background that isn't in the photo.

The head-size guide

The crop frame stands for the 2 × 2 inch printed photo. The Passport Photos page asks for a head size of 1 to 1 3/8 inches, measured from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head. YepPhoto turns that range into a guide drawn on the frame:

The Passport Photos page doesn't say whether the top of the head includes hair, and this site doesn't decide that. The page says hair may go past the edges of the photo if the whole head is shown and is the right size.

There's no eye-height guide, because the Passport Photos page gives no eye-height range, and YepPhoto doesn't borrow numbers from other pages, such as visa photo pages. The checklist covers the eyes instead.

The guide is drawn only on the screen. The saved digital photo and the print sheet don't include it.

Print sheets are drawn at 300 pixels per inch, so each 2 × 2 inch photo on the sheet is 600 × 600 pixels. That resolution is this site's choice, not a State Department rule; the Passport Photos page gives no minimum number of pixels. A crop smaller than 600 × 600 pixels isn't offered as a print sheet, because it would have to be enlarged. The digital photo is still saved.

Each sheet has cut marks outside the photos and a 1-inch scale bar for checking the printed size.

The print sheet is a single image with 300 pixels per inch. When you print it from the tool, the page is set to the sheet's paper size with no margins, and the image is placed at that size in inches, so at 100% scale each photo should come out at 2 × 2 inches. The image used for printing is a PNG, which doesn't lose detail. The saved JPEG doesn't carry a resolution setting. For a photo lab or pharmacy, order it as a 4 x 6 in print of the whole image, then measure the print with the scale bar as described below.

Browsers and printers can shrink a page to fit, which changes the photo size. When you print a sheet:

Then measure with a ruler. The distance from the first long tick to the last long tick on the scale bar should be 1 inch, and each photo should measure 2 × 2 inches. If either is off, check the settings above and print again.

In this site's check in October 2026, a sheet printed to PDF from Firefox on a Mac with the default print settings came out at 100% scale, and the 1-inch scale bar and the photo positions matched the sheet's design. This site hasn't checked Chrome, Safari, or phone browsers this way. Some printers have settings that shrink the page, so measure the scale bar after printing, whichever browser you use.

Safari before version 18.2 doesn't take the paper size or margins from the page, so choose the paper size and set the margins to None yourself.

For a photo lab or pharmacy, order a 4 x 6 in print of the saved sheet image. If you're offered crop or fit options, choose the one that prints the whole image without cropping or enlarging, and measure the print the same way.

Requirement versions and updates

The requirements come only from the U.S. Department of State's pages on travel.state.gov, never from other photo sites, photo shops, or blogs. This site summarizes them in its own words and keeps a version for each summary:

Once a month, the State Department pages are retrieved again and their text is compared with the text retrieved on the date this site shows. When a page has changed, the change is reviewed before any value on this site is updated. When nothing has changed, the date stays the same: it is the date the text these summaries are based on was retrieved, not the date of the latest monthly comparison.

Disclaimer

The State Department says unacceptable photos are the most common reason it puts passport applications on hold. YepPhoto helps you crop and print your own photo and check it yourself, but it can't tell you whether your photo will be accepted. Check your photo against the State Department's pages, and check the printed size before you cut.

Sources

U.S. passport photo requirements (printed photo), summary version 4
Source: Passport Photos. Retrieved October 16, 2026.
U.S. passport digital photo requirements (online renewal), summary version 3
Source: Uploading a Digital Photo. Retrieved October 16, 2026.