About

Purpose of the website

I created this site so that anyone anywhere in the world can take their own passport photo for free. When using the service, the user does not have to download or install a special application on his computer or smartphone. In contrast to applications running on computers and smartphones, a website can be accessed from almost any computer or smartphone, using any operating system, regardless of platform. It is also not necessary to learn how to use complex image editing software. I wanted to create a website that is free, easy to use, and creating images as fast as possible.

Site history

2004

The goal was originally to write an automatic passport photo maker software for a desktop computer. A friend of mine contacted me with the question of whether it is possible to create software that can take a large number of passport photos based on the automatic detection of the face in the photo. He showed me software that was made for a similar purpose. However, with the software, it was only possible to take a passport photo through many unnecessary steps. Using the software presented, it took a lot of time to process a large amount of images. It would also have been necessary to hire another employee. The night after the conversation, I created a small experimental program that could be used to adjust the cropping of the images in a more convenient way than the software presented. In further discussions about the software, we came to the conclusion that it would not make sense to write such software. We thought that there would not be enough user demand for it that it was worth spending time writing the program. Because of this, I did not further develop the program at that time.

2008

After four years of procrastination, I decided to still make the software. After writing the software, I came to the conclusion that distributing it would have entailed so many administrative burdens that I ended up not releasing it. This is because the distribution costs would have been expected to exceed the administrative costs.

2009

This year, it turned out that it was actually unnecessary to make a desktop version of the software! This is because most users use such an application once every 2-3 years, it is cumbersome and pointless to download such software every 2-3 years and install it on our computer. Another problem is that already in 2009 the software should have been made under at least 3-4 operating systems. It seemed a much better solution to create an online service instead of such software. Which service can users access through a website in a platform-independent manner. The big advantage of a website is that it is accessible from almost any platform. While programs need to be ported separately under different operating systems with hard work. So I started writing the passport photo program again, now rewriting the necessary parts on a web server.

Eleven years, more than eleven million users!

The site was launched in 2009 and then became more and more popular year by year. Currently, more than one million users create their passport photos each year using the site. Over the years, I have received thankful emails from countless users. These letters assure me that my work in building the site has not been useless. It’s a pleasure to have been able to help more than eleven million users create their own passport photos!