While Walmart, CVS, and Walgreens all offer passport photo services, they’re pretty expensive—usually around $15 for two photos. For students, that can feel like a serious budget hit. This guide will show you how to get 4 passport photos printed in just 20 minutes for only a few cents.

Taking the Photo

First, use your phone to take several upper-body photos in a well-lit area. Make sure that: the background is clean and clearly contrasts with the color of your clothes (this makes background removal easier later). Ideally, take the photo indoors during the daytime in front of a white wall with plenty of natural light. When shooting, avoid strong shadows on either side of your face. If needed, you can add extra lighting with a white light source (don’t use yellow lighting, or your skin tone may end up looking unnaturally sallow in the final photo).

Editing the Background

After taking the photos, choose one with even, sufficient lighting and both ears visible, then import it to your computer. Open Photoshop—here the example uses Adobe Photoshop CS6—and select the “Quick Selection Tool” from the vertical toolbar on the left.

Brush over the background a few times, and you’ll see that PS automatically detects the background area.

However, this first pass is fairly rough. Many edges will be selected too much or too little, so you’ll still need to fine-tune them manually.

At this point, it’s best to zoom in on the photo so you can make more precise adjustments. Increase the zoom percentage in the lower-left corner of the window (for example, to 50%). Use the Quick Selection Tool with the + icon to add to the selection, and the one with the - icon to subtract from the selection.

Once everything is adjusted, press “Delete” on your keyboard, set the fill content to “White,” and click “OK” to finish replacing the background.

Then save the file as a .jpg.

At this point, you’re one step closer to the dream.

Making the Passport Photo

Open your browser and go to this website to create your passport photo. Select the country as “United States,” choose the photo type “Passport&Visa 2x2,” and set Print size to “10x15cm (4x6 inch) ”.

Select the .jpg file you just prepared and click upload. In the cropping step, adjust the head so it fits within the two ovals shown. You can also tweak the brightness and contrast if needed. Forgive the model’s head for being too big and round—it goes beyond the required range.

Click “make photo”

Next comes a 90-second wait. Once the countdown finishes, you can download the fresh final passport photo .jpg.

Now take a look at the finished result (you can see part of the background wall under the teddy bear model’s arm. That’s due to the bear’s body proportions and pose. If you’re photographing a real person, you generally don’t need to worry about this. The passport photo will only show down to the shoulder area on both sides, so when removing the background earlier, you only needed to edit the area behind the upper body).

Printing the Photos

At this point, there’s only one final step left: printing. I like using Walgreens. A 4x6inch photo print costs only $0.33, and it’s also very fast—usually available for same-day pickup. It feels like saving a fortune.