When you’re getting ready to get a new passport in Singapore, one of the most important things is the photo. It needs to have the right lighting, spacing, and dimensions. Believe it or not, you can acquire the perfect passport photo at home! All you need are the right tools and some useful tips. Below, we’ve put together the ultimate guide for you to get a professional passport photo without leaving your home.
Singapore ICA Passport Photo Requirements
Before you start taking your pictures, here’s all you need to know about the requirements for an ICA passport photo:
1) The photograph must be no older than three months
2) The size of the image must be 35mm in width and 45 mm tall.
3) The photo’s background must be white.
4) The photograph must be taken in color.
5) The facial expression of the applicant must be neutral with eyes open and mouth closed. No smiling, laughing, or frowning.
6) The shoulders and hair must be visible in the photograph.
7) Sunglasses are not allowed but eyeglasses are permitted if they are worn for necessity and by prescription.
8) Only religious headgear is allowed but it must not be obscuring the face, especially the eyes. Ideally, it should be dark to contrast with the plain white background.
9) The lighting of the photo must not have contrast or brightness too high. This is to make sure that it does not mask the natural skin tone of the applicant.
While these are the normal Singapore passport photo requirements, there are three extra steps to keep in mind should you choose to opt for a digital ICA picture when deciding to make passport photos at home:
1) The digital size of the photo should be 400×515 pixels
2) The file format of the photo must be JPEG or .jpg
3) The file size of the photo must be 60kb at the most.
Additionally, the face in the Singapore passport photo must take up about three-quarters of the picture with the top 10% of the picture being blank, leaving a bit of empty space between the top of the picture and the top of the applicant’s head.
If you would like more information on the do’s and don’ts of ICA passport photo requirements, feel free to visit the official Singapore ICA website.
How to Properly Take a DIY Photo for ICA Passports
One thing you should have with you when taking your passport photo is a helper. While selfies seem like the obvious choice, it can be very hard to get the right angle by simply holding your cellphone a foot away from your face.
If you have a professional camera and a tripod, you could do it on your own by taking advantage of the timer function. Otherwise, you will need a friend or roommate to take the picture for you.
Next, you should make sure the picture is being taken under the right conditions. For one thing, it should be taken indoors as passport photos require lighting conditions that aren’t subject to the sun or the sky. It needs to be not too bright but not too dark either.
The camera should also be positioned at eye level so that you can stare directly into the lens at your normal standing posture. This is another reason why having someone take your DIY ICA passport photo for you is so important. It also reduces the odds of you having to tilt your face up or down, which could easily invalidate the photo.
Editing Your Singapore Passport Photo Online
Once you have your passport photo taken, it’s still not quite ready to submit for your ICA passport application. The last thing you need to use is an online photo editing and enhancing tool to make it, quite literally, picture-perfect. This is where AiPassportPhotos comes into play.
One of the most useful features of AiPassportPhotos is the ability to automatically resize and crop any photo you submit. This makes it extremely easy to perfectly meet the ICA photo requirements as far as spacing and dimensions are concerned.
Because the ICA also has specific requirements about the photo file size and file format, you can easily select JPEG as your file type and select the file quality, so it does not exceed 60kb.
Once the dimensions and facial spacing are done, you can go even further to edit your photo. Another extremely useful tool is removing the background from the photo. Thanks to AI-based technology and impeccable facial recognition technology, the tools at AiPassportPhotos can single out your face from the rest of the environment in the picture. Whether you are standing in front of a painted wall or the outside of a building, it can easily erase the entire background and seamlessly replace it with a plain, blank white background.
And if your passport photo was a little blurry, you can use the anti-blur effects to remove it and enhance your facial features to a normal standard so that they are clear enough for the ICA’s requirements.
Just make sure not to go overboard and change your facial appearance too much, as the ICA still requires a photo that is as accurate a representation of you as possible. Any photo that is edited, enhanced, or colorized too much could be considered invalid.
When it comes to photos required for official government documents, AiPassportPhotos should only be used for resizing and a little retouching with lighting and image quality, and color quality, not a complete modification of your facial features.
Conclusion
Taking your own passport-sized photos with your phone is the way to go if you want to save time and money. Then, you can simply use AiPassportPhotos to shape and edit them to your liking with simple automated tools that significantly speed up the process.
In no time, you’ll have the ideal passport photos that are ready for the ICA!
Erin Lo