Tutorial How to Make a Photo Pass in Photoshop for Beginners (Complete)

A passport photo is a proof of identity that is used for various activity requirements. In general, the photo only shows the front face from the top of the head to the chest. Although in some cases, the photo will show the whole body or up to the waist. However, it is very rare to find such a requirement.

In Indonesia itself, there are several sizes of photographs that are often used, namely 2×3 cm, 3×4 cm, and 4×6 cm. In standard terms, faces must appear at least 70 – 80 percent of the entire photo. So, the size of the upper body is not too dominant in the photo.

Then, if we talk about passport photos, the next question is the background color. Some of the background colors that are often used are red, blue and white. Even when making e-KTP, the required photos are red and blue. Where the red background is reserved for residents born in odd years and vice versa, the blue background is for residents born in even years.

Although a photograph is not a primary daily need, it is necessary when applying for a job, registering for school, school report cards, school graduation certificates or diplomas, ID cards, making identity documents such as ID cards, driving licenses, passports, marriage certificates, and so on. etc. Actually, some people prefer to use the services of a photo pass so they don’t have to worry about how to take photos, edit them, and print them. However, you must be willing to spend more money than making your own passport photo. Especially nowadays, everyone who uses a cellphone already has a very capable camera. Especially if people have digital cameras or DSLR cameras.

How to Make a Passport in Photoshop

The reason for making your own passport photo is that sometimes the request does not match the results provided by the photocopy service. Because some passport photo services usually tend to serve their customers very instantaneously. If we can take a photo with several shots until it matches what we want, sometimes some photo services only want to repeat it once to three times. Then, the next reason is that we can save money even though we don’t have a background cloth for the photo shoot.

Therefore, there are several things that you must understand first to make your own passport photos look like professional results. This article will help to guide you on what things need to be prepared. Let’s see the steps on how to make a passport photo in Photoshop below.

#Step 1: Understand the criteria for the required passport

1. It is better to understand the criteria for the required photo pass first. Because some requirements have their own criteria to make a photo pass. The things you have to pay attention to is knowing which part of the body to be photographed. In general, only from the top of the head to the chest only. However, it is possible that the passport photo is requested with other criteria. So adjust the size of the photo according to the position of the photo.

2. Then specify the required photo size. The use of passport photos in Indonesia are:

1. Passport size 2×3 cm (20×30 mm or 0.7×1.1 inch)
2. Passport size 3×4 cm (30×40 mm or 1.1×1.5 inch)
3. Photo size 4×6 cm (40×60 mm or 1.5×2.3 inches)

3. Then know the background color or background of a photo.

#Step 2: Prepare tools and materials

1. The next step is to prepare a photo file which will then be made into a photo pass.

2. Download and install the Photoshop application on your computer. In this article, I am using Photoshop CS4 application. It doesn’t matter if you can use another version, because it doesn’t look much different.

#Step 3: Crop the photo according to the size of the photo

This aims to get rid of the parts that are not needed as well as determine the size of the photo.

1. Open Photoshop > open photo by pressing ctrl + O then select photo then OK

2. Then select crop on the toolbox.

3. Next do crop or cutting by left-clicking on the top left and then holding and releasing at the bottom right. Adjust the location of the crop and the position of the photo by sliding it like the image below > Then press Enter, then the photo will be cropped as needed.

#Step 4: Photo Selection

The photo selection in this step aims to separate the photo from the background. So it will be easy to change the appropriate background color.

1. Turn photos into layers by double clicking or double click on the word Background in the layers panel. If the panel does not appear, please select the window menu and then select layers.

2. Just leave the layer name Layer 0, so go ahead click OK.

3. Select the toolbox icon as shown below then select the section Polygonal Lasso Tool.

4. Now, enter the stage that requires thoroughness and patience. Photo section selection by left click to make points/dots. Try the points that are made tightly so that the resulting detail is good, especially on the curved part. Do this until the dots select the entire photo by joining the first and last points together.

Notes:

To make this selection easier, you can do the following:

• Zoom In to enlarge the photo so that the photo is more detailed, press ctrl + (+).
• Zoom Out to reduce the photo so that the photo is not too close, press ctrl + (-).
• Drag to move the photo, hold down the space bar at the same time as dragging the photo using the mouse.
• Delete to delete points/dots, press the Delete key.

5. If the first point and the last point have merged, then the photo will be selected as a dotted line.

#Step 5: Edit Photos Smoothly and Feather

In this step, make edits so that later the photo and background look more unified.

1. Select Select on menubar > Choose Modify > Select Smooth.

2. Fill in the value of the sample radius according to the needs. The general range is the value from 2 to 4 > Select OK.

3. Next select Select on menubar > Choose Modify > Choose Feather or by pressing Shift + F6.

4. then fill in the feather radius according to the needs. The general range is 1 to 1.5 > then click OK.

#Step 6: Change Background Color

1. Press the Delete key on your keyboard then the background will be erased.

2. Then add a background to the photo by duplicating the layer, namely right click on layer 0 > select duplicate layer or press ctrl + j as duplicate shortcut.

3. Just leave the name of the new layer layer 0 copy then click OK.

4. Then the layers panel will increase to two. Activate layer 0 by clicking on layer 0.

5. Then select the second color in the toolbox or the part marked with severe red color below > then choose color that matches the photo requirements > click OK.

6. Then the background has changed and the photo has been completed. Don’t forget to save it in jpg, png or other formats. Also save it in psd format so that if you want to change the background you don’t have to repeat the edit from the first step.

Isn’t it easy to make a photo pass in Photoshop? If we already know how to make a passport photo then we don’t need to spend more money just for something that we can actually do. Especially if the results obtained are often disappointing. So that the results of the selection you make look more like professional services, you should be diligent in training your hands. So this article and hopefully useful for you. Thank you.

Introverted woman. Has a personality that enjoys ‘me time’ more, the beach, and the mountains.

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