One of the most frequent question that folks as us is how to change the background of passport photos.
About Me
First, I’d like to say that I’m not a professional photographer. All I have is a simple Sony Cybershot digital camera and a $70 Canon printer.
However, since I travel quite a lot with my wife and 3 kids, we need to make new passport photos regularly.
The tips you find here are what I do, to get good passport photos. I’m pretty sure that you can do better with professional photo equipment.
Amir
While the unfortunate answer is that digital edits are strictly prohibited, there are simple things that you can do to achieve the right background for your photos.
Use Natural Ambient Lighting
Natural lighting (a.k.a sunlight) will give you good color balance and will help keep a uniform background. It may not be enough, but it’s a great start.
Try to take the passport photos so that the window with the sunlight is behind the camera, facing the subject. This way, the background will remain smooth and without shadows.
Of course, you don’t want to have blinding sunlight on the face of the subject. Use shades to keep the light ambient.
Add a Flash
Even if natural lighting conditions are good, you should also add a flash. Using a flash will help iron out shadows and will cancel sideways-coming light sources.
Make sure that using the flash doesn’t light only the object and darken the background.
Keep Distance Between the Subject and Background
If the subject of the photo is standing very close to the background, you will most likely see some sort of shadow on the wall.
Since the flash and the camera lens are not at the exact same place, some shadow will always exist. To reduce this shadow and make it virtually invisible, the object of the photo should stand about 1/2 to 1 meter (2-3 feet) from the background.
This way, the passport photo will not show the shadow that the object is dropping on the wall. This shadow will mix with the ambient light and will practically disappear.