Poor quality passport photos

If you are reasonably handy with a camera and have access to a good (true photo-quality printer), you can bypass the (sometimes disinterested) staff at the mass-photo outlets, and just take (and print) your own. It's a great option, but you do have to be careful for a number of reasons.

I shot and printed the photos for my own and my spouse's passports. It's nice to be able to control your image -- take a lot of photos, pick the one you like. You may even get extra points from family members if you know how to use image-editing software to carefully remove a blemish or two, maybe de-emphasize a slight double-chin, and subtly adjust the amount of wrinkles or gray hair showing. This is a dangerous gray area, though, and you need to exercise a LOT of restraint when "retouching" any photo, but especially passport photos -- if you make obvious changes, your photo (and your passport) will be rejected. Just make sure you know what you are doing. But it can be done successfully.

Turns out this is new aspect of modern life: it may be that the border robots prefer them. Here's a thread on TA about it: https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g1-i10702-k10707661-o10-Received_Passport_Messed_up_photo-Air_Travel.html

I have always taken my own passport photos, for myself and family members. There are templates and instructions on the internet. I've never had a problem. A couple times when I've picked up the photos, the developer has asked if they were passport photos and offered to crop and cut to size.

I've gotten mine at AAA. They always show me the photo before it's printed and ask if it's okay. If not, they take another one.

And if you're a member of AAA it's free.

Don't worry too much about it. The border agents see hundreds of passports a day. I'm sure yours is not the only bad one they see on a regular basis.

One should always have a crap passport photo. Generally one feels like crap when attending passport control.

OP wasn't concerned about the quality of the photos that she sent in for her (and her family member?) passports. She is concerned by the way they were processed and by their appearance on their finalized passports.

I would think that once the passport has been generated by the federal government in that way, it would be extremely unlikely for them to be rejected by an immigration officer.

They are already in your passport. There is unlikely to be a problem as the passport agency already determined that they were good enough.

FWIW, I think my current passport photo looks a bit washed out and it has not caused any issue.

Maybe its an attempt to project what your haggard traveler look will be 5 years from now, so it will match your look then? :-)

Whether it is so bad that it causes some border guard to wonder if its a forgery....

I sent it excellent passport photos to the US passport office for my renewal. My husbands came back perfect and mine is so faded you can barely see me. I used it to travel all over Europe and didn’t have any issues. I like you was very concerned, and it still bothers me but obviously it appears to be common.

If it is good enough for the State Department, it's good enough for other countries. I've never heard of anyone not getting into a country because of a photo.

It's the way the new biometric passports are made. Honestly, most countries passport controls do a cursory glance at best and it's mostly all computerized.

Realistically, your appearance is a very poor way of identifying you. We all have fingerprints. When I used Global Entry recently the machine wanted no kind of biometric or identifying info from me, I just had to stand in front of its camera (making sure I fit into the outline on the screen). Then I was in. I daresay I don't look much anymore like whatever picture from whatever database they used to ID me, but it worked.

The US State Department wouldn't have processed those if they were unacceptable. Nothing to worry about I am on my third passport .

No one in Italy ever looked at my passport nor stamped it. I wouldn't worry.