Crop before you resize, always
When an image is the wrong shape for a requirement, there are only two ways out: remove part of the image, or distort it. Resizing a 4:3 photo into a square frame does the second, and the result is a face that is subtly too wide. Reviewers notice, and automated face checks notice more reliably still.
Cropping does the first, and lets you choose what goes. That is why every workflow on this site puts cropping before resizing.
The ratios that matter
| Ratio | Used for | Typical pixels |
|---|---|---|
| 1:1 (square) | US passport and visa, OCI, Japan visa | 600 × 600 |
| 7:9 | 35 × 45 mm, the international standard | 413 × 531 |
| 3:1 | Signatures on exam and bank forms | 709 × 236 |
| 20:23 | Indian bank exam photos | 200 × 230 |
| 3:4 | China visa photos | 354 × 472 |
Composing the crop
For an identity photo, three things matter more than anything else:
- Centre the face horizontally. Not the body, the face. People lean, and an off-centre head is a common rejection.
- Get the head size right. Requirements state it as a percentage of image height, and it varies a lot: the US wants 50–69%, Schengen wants 70–80%. Getting this wrong is the most frequent reason a technically valid photo is refused.
- Leave a little headroom. A crop that touches the top of the head reads as cut off, even when the head size is technically correct.
The photo maker draws guides showing exactly where the crown and chin should sit for a given requirement, which removes the guesswork entirely.
Cropping is also a privacy step
Backgrounds carry more information than people expect, documents on a desk, a view through a window, family photos on a wall. Cropping tightly before sending an image to a third party removes all of it.
The export also drops EXIF metadata, including the GPS coordinates your phone embeds. A photo taken at home usually has your home address written into it, and that travels with the file unless something removes it.
After cropping
Set a size limit in the output options to compress in the same pass. For exact pixel dimensions, follow with the resize tool. For a signature, the signature tool finds the ink and crops to it automatically, better than doing it by hand.