How to Make a Passport or Visa Photo Background White on Mac

It depends on the country, the document and sometimes the way you apply. Some offices take a digital photo you made yourself if it follows their rules; others ask for a studio print or say the photo must not be edited. Read the photo guide of your office before you change anything: its rules are the ones that count.

The same guide lists the numbers, which differ from office to office, so this guide gives none. Look for:

• Background: the color it names, and whether editing is allowed at all.
• Size and shape: pixels or millimeters, proportions and head size.
• File: the format, often JPEG, and the maximum size in KB or MB.
• Face: expression, glasses, lighting and shadows. The camera decides these; no software fixes them.

Partly. On macOS 14 and later, right-click a photo in Finder and choose Quick Actions > Remove Background, or use Tools > Remove Background in Preview. Both keep the person and make everything else transparent.

Transparent isn't white: many upload forms show it as black or gray, and JPEG can't store transparency. For one photo you can place the cut-out on a white slide in Keynote or a white page in Pages and export it again, then fix the shape and the file size by hand.

File Acture's Remove Background finds the person in the photo, places them on the background you choose, frames the picture and saves a new file. It reads JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, AVIF and TIFF, so an iPhone photo works as it is. The settings sit in the panel on the right and are remembered for the next run.

• Background: choose Color. It starts as white; if the swatch shows another color, click White.
• Format: JPEG, which most upload forms expect. It can be chosen once a color is set.
• Canvas: Square 1:1 if the form asks for a square photo; the picture is centered and white fills the rest, so nothing is stretched. Otherwise keep Original.
• Crop to subject: optional. It trims the empty space around the person and Padding leaves a margin of 0–30%. It frames by the person's outline, not by head size; where the person touches the photo's edge, the margin adds white beyond it, so set Padding to 0% to avoid that.
• Limit file size: turn it on if the form has a maximum and enter it under Max size.

Turn on Limit file size, type the form's maximum under Max size in KB or MB, or pick a value from Presets. For a JPEG, File Acture lowers the quality until the photo fits and scales the picture down only if that isn't enough, which also changes its pixel size. The tighter the limit, the more it costs, so look at the face at actual size afterwards.

If the limit is out of reach, File Acture reports the smallest size it can get instead of saving a file that is over. Reducing a photo to an exact size in KB shows roughly how many pixels each small limit allows.

Only the background is replaced, so a few things stay in your hands.

• The outline. Compare Before and After, then open the result and look at hair, ears and shoulders at actual size. A plain wall, even light and clothes that contrast with it cut out cleanest; if an edge is wrong, retake the photo rather than retouching it.
• One person, one face. Everything in the foreground is kept, and shadows on the face, glare on glasses and a tilted head stay as they are. Retake the photo if it doesn't meet your office's face rules.
• Size. Select the file in Finder and press Command-I (Get Info) for its file size and, for images, its dimensions in pixels. Compare both with the form.
• Name. Passport.heic is saved as Passport-no-bg.jpg; rename it if the form wants a particular name.

A passport photo is a clear picture of your face. Online services need it on their servers first. File Acture finds the person on your Mac with the image analysis built into macOS, so the photo is never uploaded; the free version needs an internet connection only to count its runs. The result carries no camera or location data.

The free version includes 3 runs on each Mac, with up to 5 photos per run, so a small family fits in one run. For more, see pricing.