How to take a green card photo with your phone
You do not need a studio. You need a wall, daylight and a helper standing two metres away — plus a camera that has stopped trying to improve the picture.
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You do not need a studio. You need a plain wall, a window, another person and about two metres of space. The whole shoot takes ten minutes, and most of that is setting the camera up so it stops helping you.
What the room needs
| Element | What works | What to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Wall | Plain white or off-white, no texture | Wallpaper, a door frame, a curtain, a corner |
| Your distance from it | About one metre | Standing against the wall — that is where shadows come from |
| Light | A window in front of you, daylight | A window behind or beside you, a ceiling lamp alone |
| Camera distance | About two metres, main camera | Arm's length — it distorts the nose and forehead |
| Camera height | Your eye level | Held above you, which pushes the eye line down |
Why two metres matters
A lens close to a face enlarges whatever is nearest to it. At arm's length that is the nose. The result looks like you and still reads as distorted next to a passport photo. Stepping back and letting the head fill the frame through distance, not proximity, removes the effect.
Set the camera up before you shoot
Modern phones process photos by default. Every one of these settings is a step towards a photo you cannot use.
| Setting | What to do |
|---|---|
| Portrait mode | Off. Use the standard photo mode. Portrait blur is computed, not photographed. |
| Beauty / face retouch | Off. Many front cameras enable it silently. |
| Scene optimiser / AI camera | Off, where your phone offers the switch. |
| Photographic style | Standard or neutral, not a warm or vivid preset. |
| Filters | None, at capture and afterwards. |
| Flash | Off. Daylight from a window beats it every time. |
| File format | JPEG if your phone offers the choice. Otherwise convert from HEIC later. |
The shoot, step by step
- Stand one metre in front of the wall, facing a window.
- Take off glasses and any hat. Tuck hair back from your face if it covers an eyebrow or an eye.
- Ask your helper to stand two metres away and hold the phone at your eye level.
- Frame you from mid-chest up. Leave space above the head — you can crop it away later, but you cannot add it.
- Look straight at the lens. Keep your mouth closed and your face relaxed.
- Take five or six frames. Blinking ruins more photos than anything else in this list.
- Look at the results at full size, not as thumbnails. Check the eyes are open and the face is sharp.
Getting the file off the phone without breaking it
This step ruins more entries than the shoot does. Chat apps recompress images and strip the capture date, which can turn a good photo into one that fails on compression or on recency.
- Send it as a file or document, not as a photo in a chat.
- Or use a cable, AirDrop or a cloud folder that stores originals.
- Do not screenshot the photo. A screenshot is the wrong size, the wrong format and has no capture date.
- Convert HEIC to JPEG if your phone saved it that way. A format conversion is not an edit of the picture.
Crop to 600×600
The entry needs a square image of exactly 600×600 pixels, under 240 KB. Crop so the head fills 50–69% of the height and the eyes sit 56–69% up from the bottom, then resize. Resize before you compress: squeezing a full-resolution photo straight to 240 KB produces visible blocks.
What you must not do at this stage is anything that changes the picture — no background replacement, no smoothing, no enhancement. Our guide to the AI photo ban explains where the line sits.
Ten-minute checklist
Plain wall · one metre from it · window in front · glasses off · camera at eye level · two metres back · standard mode · beauty off · mouth closed · eyes open · five frames · sent as a file · cropped to 600×600 · nothing retouched.
Check the shot before you trust it
DV Photo checks 32 points based on the published DV photo requirements. It measures 20 of them from the image itself and 8 from the file and its metadata, and tells you which one fails and by how much. The other 4 are reminders you verify yourself. It never retouches your face or replaces the background. Auto-fix only crops, resizes and re-encodes the file, and never adds a pixel: if a crop is not enough, it asks you to retake the photo. All 32 checks and the automatic fix are free and need no sign-up.
Check my photoQuestions people ask
Can I take the photo alone as a selfie?
It is a bad idea. At arm's length the lens distorts the nose and forehead, and the front camera often applies smoothing. Use the main camera on a stand or ask someone to hold it.
Can I use a white bedsheet as a background?
Only if it hangs completely flat. Folds read as pattern and shadow. A painted wall is easier.
Is a phone photo good enough at all?
Yes. The requirements are about framing, light and the file, not about the camera. A modern phone in daylight exceeds what the specification needs.
What if I have no plain wall at home?
A plain door, the back of a wardrobe or a flat curtain that hangs without folds can work. Check the corners of the frame for tone differences.
Do I need to remove my glasses even for the entry photo?
Yes. Glasses are not accepted in the photo, prescription or not.