Frequently Asked Questions

Any recent, clear, front-facing photo of yourself taken within the last six months. We accept JPG, PNG, and HEIC (iPhone) files; HEIC images are converted to JPEG automatically. Selfies taken with a phone work fine — the biometric check only cares about your face, not the camera.

Typically a few seconds end-to-end. The biometric analysis and compliance validation run in a few hundred milliseconds; background removal is the slowest step (a few seconds on desktop, slightly longer on mobile). You can download immediately after payment.

No. SnapPhoto is anonymous — no sign-up, no password, no account. After you pay we email you the download links; we do not retain your photo or email longer than needed to deliver the order.

Any modern browser on desktop (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge) or mobile (iOS Safari, Android Chrome) works. On desktop the entire pipeline including background removal runs locally in your browser using WebGPU; on mobile we hand off background removal to a secure server because mobile browsers have tight memory limits.

We validate every photo against the destination country’s published ICAO biometric rules before you pay — face centering, head tilt (max 5°), eye openness, mouth closure, shoulder level, and the absence of eyeglasses where required. If any check fails, we tell you exactly why and you can retry with a different photo for free.

Face centering (within 10% of the frame center), head roll under 5°, both eyes open (eye aspect ratio above 0.2), mouth closed (neutral expression), shoulders level (under 4.5° tilt), shoulders centered, and the presence of eyeglasses (using pixel-level analysis across the nose bridge and eye region). Country-specific rules — head height range, background color, face coverage — are applied during the auto-framing stage.

Rejections are extremely rare because we enforce the official biometric spec up front. If the embassy rejects a SnapPhoto-validated photo for a reason that falls under our published validation rules, we will refund the order — see our Refund Policy for details.

It depends on the country. The U.S. State Department has prohibited glasses in visa photos since November 2016. Schengen consulates typically reject glasses as well. Canada allows glasses if there are no reflections or tinting; China allows them if the lenses are transparent and frames do not cover the eyes. SnapPhoto detects glasses automatically and applies the right rule per country.

No. Every country we support requires a neutral expression with the mouth closed. SnapPhoto measures the inner lip gap and rejects photos with a visibly open mouth.

On desktop: no — face detection, validation, and background removal all run locally in your browser. On mobile: the original photo and the biometric analysis stay local, but the downscaled (max 1024 px) version of your photo is sent to a secure background-removal service during stage 2 because mobile browsers cannot run the AI model locally without crashing. Nothing is persisted on our side beyond what is needed to deliver your order.

Immediately after checkout you are redirected to a download page with signed short-lived links to both your digital photo and, if purchased, the 4×6″ print sheet. We also email the links to the address entered at checkout as a backup.

No. The free preview has a light watermark; the purchased photo is clean, embassy-ready, and unmarked.

The 4×6″ print sheet is pre-laid with 2–6 copies of your photo plus cutting guides. Take the JPEG file to any drugstore photo kiosk (CVS, Walgreens, Walmart) or print it yourself on any home photo printer. A 4×6″ print at any retail kiosk costs $0.20–$0.50.

A high-quality JPEG sized exactly to your destination country’s spec (for example 600 × 600 px for U.S., 33 × 48 mm at 300 DPI for China). The 4×6″ print sheet is also delivered as a JPEG at 1200 × 1800 px.

A single digital photo is $3.99. A 4×6″ print sheet with multiple copies of your photo and cutting guides is $4.99. There is no subscription and no upsell — you pay once per photo.

Yes. If a SnapPhoto-validated photo is rejected by the embassy for a reason we validate against, we refund the full order. See the Refund Policy for eligibility details and how to submit a request.