DS-160 Photo Checker: Test Your US Visa Photo Before You Upload
The US visa photo is a 2 × 2 inch square, 600 to 1200 pixels on each side, with the head filling roughly half to two-thirds of the frame against a plain white background. Common reasons a photo is returned are a head that is too small or too large, shadows on the background and a tilted head.
The checker above measures each of those rules on your photo, shows which pass, and crops it to 600 × 600 pixels with 300 DPI written into the JPEG. It checks against published rules but is not the State Department, so a pass is a good sign rather than a guarantee. It cannot fix a bad background or uneven lighting; those need a reshoot.
Passport & Visa Photo Checker, Print Sheet and Portal File Resizer
Checks a portrait against US DS-160 and passport (2×2 in), UK, Schengen / ICAO 9303 and Australian (35×45 mm), Canadian online renewal (1200×1800 px), DV Lottery and India e-Visa rules — head size, pose, background and lighting — then auto-crops it to a JPEG at the right DPI and under the portal’s file-size limit. Any other picture or scan can be fitted to a portal’s exact pixels, DPI and KB range. Everything runs in your browser; the file never leaves your device.
One tool, two prices
A passport or visa photo is found by its face, checked and cropped so the head and eye line land inside the authority’s bands, with a print sheet included. A file resize fits any picture or scan to the numbers a portal publishes with a centre crop or padding, with no face check, and costs less. A portal not on the list can be entered as a custom photo (with its face bands) or a custom file size.
What the photo check measures
Geometry: head height, eye line and centring against the standard’s allowed bands.
Head pose: roll, yaw and pitch from a weak-perspective POS solver; roll is also read from the eye line.
Background: colour uniformity (CIE76 ΔE*ab), brightness, patterns and cast shadows.
Lighting: left/right symmetry (SSIM) and specular hotspots.
Expression: eyes open and neutral mouth, measured from the face mesh and estimated when it is unavailable.
Print at home or at a kiosk
For standards that accept a printed photo, the tool also builds a 4×6 in or 10×15 cm print sheet: copies of the cropped photo at their exact physical size, with cut marks and 300 DPI written into the file. Order it as an ordinary photo print and turn off any “fit to frame” option so the size stays exact. The sheet is included in the photo’s price.
Children, families and client batches
Child mode relaxes the eye and expression checks only where the authority does (GOV.UK, the US State Department, Canada and Australia publish rules for babies and young children). Add each finished photo to a batch and download every photo and sheet as one ZIP, charged once with volume discounts, which suits families, schools and immigration firms that should not upload clients’ faces anywhere.
How a file hits an exact size
The resize binary-searches JPEG quality (up to 12 iterations) to land inside the KB band at the highest quality possible, then reports the SSIM so you can see how much fidelity was kept. The DPI is written straight into the JFIF header with no resample, and a page can be saved as a best-effort PDF/A.
Face finder and limits
The face is found by Google’s MediaPipe Face Landmarker, run entirely in your browser. Its model (about 4 MB) and runtime load from this site once and are then cached; your photo is never sent anywhere, and the model only places points, it identifies no one. Drag any point to fine-tune it. If the model can’t run on your device, you place the points by hand and the expression checks are advisory. This is a pre-submission check; the issuing authority makes the final decision.
Frequently asked questions
What are the DS-160 photo requirements?
A square image, 600 to 1200 pixels on each side, with the head about 50 to 69 percent of the frame from chin to crown, the eye line roughly 56 to 69 percent of the height up from the bottom, and a plain white or off-white background. The checker tests each of these, along with head pose and lighting.
What pixel size and DPI does the exported US photo have?
600 × 600 pixels, with 300 DPI written into the JPEG's header, which is the bottom of the allowed 600 to 1200 pixel range. The DPI is recorded in the file itself, not only implied by the pixel count.
Can this tool fix a US visa photo that fails the check?
Framing, yes: the auto-crop recentres the head and scales it to the required proportion. Background, lighting and expression problems have to be reshot, and the report tells you which rule is the blocker.
Does passing here guarantee the State Department will accept the photo?
No. The tool checks published rules locally, but it is not the issuing authority and a human reviewer or the official submission check has the final word. A pass means the measurable rules are met, which removes the most common causes of rejection.
Is my photo uploaded anywhere to be checked?
No. The whole check runs in your browser and the file is never uploaded. Previewing and checking need no account; an account is needed only to spend tokens when you download the result.
Key facts about Visa & Portal Photo Formatter: where it runs, what it costs, what it accepts and produces, and its limits.
Where it runs
Entirely in your browser. Files are never uploaded.
Cost
499 tokens per photo (about $4.99 at the base rate); larger batches cost less per photo: 6–10 take 10% off the total, rising to 30% off at 41–50
Accepts
JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, HEIC/HEIF
Produces
Photo Checker: a pass/fail report per rule, plus an auto-cropped JPEG at the right size and DPI (US 600×600 at 300 DPI, Schengen 827×1063 at 600 DPI). Portal Resizer: a re-encoded JPEG or PDF matching the portal's exact dimensions, DPI, format and file-size band.
Batch
Up to 50 files per run.
Account needed
Only to spend tokens. Browsing and previewing are free.
What it does not do
It checks published geometry and lighting rules, crops to size and meets a portal's technical requirements. It does not alter faces or backgrounds and cannot guarantee a reviewer's decision; content rules, meaning what the photo or document must show, are still up to you.
Visa & Portal Photo Formatter: before and after
An illustration with sample files; your own files show their own results.
