Disclosure: the original Korean post was produced through a REVU campaign. The service was provided to me rather than paid for. I have removed its shortened tracking link and do not name or link the app here.
Field note: this is an English adaptation of a Korean post from 19 November 2024, rewritten because I no longer agree with it. Passport photo rules are set by the issuing authority, not by an app, and I have checked mine against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs page linked above. Nothing here is official guidance. Check the current rules yourself before you photograph anything.
In late 2024 INa was five months old and had no passport. A friend's baby had one, a trip to Japan was being discussed, and I got as far as a payment screen before that plan quietly fell apart. What stayed with me was the sensible half of the impulse: sort the document out before you need it.
The part I did not know how to do was the photograph. An adult sits still in a studio. A five-month-old does neither.
What I Actually Did in 2024
I used a Korean app that presents itself as a round-the-clock ID photo studio. You pick a document format, supply a photo, and it handles the rest before printing and posting the results to you.
In-app shooting was hopeless with a baby, so I did what seemed workable then: opened the ordinary camera, took a fast burst, and picked the least chaotic frame afterwards. Then I let the software do three things. One option was labelled as slimming but, as far as I could tell, straightened the tilt of the frame. It offered a colour adjustment, which I declined. And it separated her from my living room and dropped her onto a clean white background.
That third step impressed me most at the time. Her hair was a disaster and the cut-out handled it anyway. I wrote about it admiringly. Prints arrived the same day, and I wrote that I intended to apply the following morning.
I never posted a follow-up confirming whether we applied or whether the photograph was accepted, and I am not going to reconstruct either outcome now. What I can tell you is what the rules say.
The Rules I Should Have Read First
Korea follows the ICAO standard, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states plainly that a passport photo must represent the actual holder as they are, without alteration. The specifics:
- 3.5 × 4.5 cm, with head length from crown (excluding hair) to chin between 3.2 and 3.6 cm.
- Taken within six months of the application date, with no hat.
- A plain white background, even, free of ink marks, with no border.
- No other person and no object in the frame.
- For infants and toddlers, every adult standard applies. No toys, no guardian visible. For newborns and infants of 36 months or under who cannot be photographed with the mouth closed, having the lips slightly apart is permitted.
And then the two lines that undo my 2024 afternoon. Photos arbitrarily retouched using editing software or filter functions are not permitted, and the rule names AI-based editing, processing, compositing and generation explicitly. Separately: photos with the background erased using editing software, or with the subject composited onto a white background, cannot be submitted.
That is not a technicality I can argue around. Automatic background replacement is the app's headline feature and the reason I chose it. It is also, in the plainest possible terms, the thing the rules say not to submit.
What I Would Do Instead
Here is the part that surprised me, and the reason this is not simply "go to a studio."
The ministry explicitly permits a photo you took yourself, provided it meets the specification. Home photography is not the problem. Software that invents the background is.
So the workflow I would use now keeps the only good idea from 2024 and discards the rest. Photograph the baby against a real white surface — a plain wall, or a white sheet pulled properly flat. Get even light on the face and the background so there are no shadows behind the head, which is the failure a studio is actually being paid to avoid. Take a long burst, because the frame with her facing forward and eyes open is a numbers game. And remember the mouth allowance: at 36 months or under, slightly parted lips are fine, which removes the hardest requirement.
Then have it sized and printed without changing the face or the background. Do not smooth, do not slim, and do not let anything cut her out of the room she is sitting in.
If the background will not cooperate, that is the signal to pay a studio, not to reach for the editing tools. A passport photograph is a legal identity document, not a place to guess which edits might be accepted.
I left the 2024 post up because I would rather show the correction than quietly delete the mistake. But if you came here looking for a shortcut, the honest answer is that the shortcut I took is the one the rules name. Read the ministry page first. It takes less time than the photographs do.
Sources checked
Last reviewed August 29, 2026.
- Original Korean review – ID photo app used for a baby passport photo — banggujin Naver Blog
- 여권 사진 (Passport Photo Requirements) — Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea
- Passport Photo Requirements (English restatement) — Namyangju City
Schedules, prices and operating rules can change. Where a detail is time-sensitive, the linked operator remains the final authority.
