Resize Image to 2x2 Inches

How 2x2 Inches Becomes 600 Pixels

An inch is a length and a pixel is not, so the two only meet through a resolution. At 300 pixels per inch, the density print shops work at, 2 inches is 600 pixels and a 2 x 2 inch photo is a 600 x 600 square. That figure is also where the United States digital photo requirement begins - the published specification asks for a square image no smaller than 600 x 600 and no larger than 1200 x 1200 - which is why this page settles on 600 rather than 500 or 800. Specifications are revised from time to time, so take the current number from the official page rather than from a tool. Squares are unforgiving, because almost nothing is photographed square. A 3024 x 4032 phone portrait cropped to fill becomes 600 x 800 before the top and bottom are trimmed off, so a quarter of the picture height disappears, and the trim is centred on the frame rather than on anybody in it. Fitted whole instead, the same photo lands at 450 x 600 with a 75 pixel bar of flat background down each side, a quarter of the finished square. For an identity photo that second option is usually useless, because every specification of this kind states how much of the frame the head has to occupy and a letterboxed subject cannot meet it. Cropping deliberately first, with the crop tool on this site, beats either automatic fit. Resolution runs out quickly at this size in one particular situation: when the only usable photo is a face lifted out of a group shot. A head measuring 280 pixels in the original has to grow to fill 600, and enlarging invents nothing, it interpolates. On a screen the result passes; printed at 2 x 2 inches on photo paper it looks exactly like what it is, which is why the enlargement factor appears on the result line. One more thing worth knowing about a photograph of your own face: it stays on your machine. The scaling and the crop are done by the browser itself, and no copy is sent anywhere to be squared off.