have a look in pharmacys for blotting paper ... this will get rid of any shine on your face before the photo.

if you often have a dodgy looking jaw line in photos sort out your posture.... sit up stright and relax your shoulders right down (dont want to look like you have no neck)... pull your neck back and straight and tilt your chin slightly down.... then if you push your tongue into the roof of your mouth it will pull up your jaw line.... some people swear by pushing their tongue against the back of their teeth when smiling too.
or wear a scarf (a thin cotton type one not a big wooly one! haha)

i second the dont wear your hair up... unless you absolutely think this looks better for you... in which case make it messy have bits dangling or poofed up.... or you will look bald!
as for hair down, a side parting tends to look better than "curtains"

practice in the mirror and see what looks best


to be honest... those who have to check them will see so many they're not going to remember or comment on your photo.... and passport/license photos are just a well known to be awful pictures.... the combination of bad lighting, inexperienced photographer, lack of preparation and usually a one off photo without trials just really doesnt lend itself to a good picture. its just good luck really haha

I have had pretty good license photos. the only bad one was for my permit. I had some hair sticking out the side of my head, and my pocketbook was still slung across my chest which just looked really dumb.
Arizona took way better photos than Mass. And yes, Jon, their cameras were further away, and when they actually posted your picture in it, it was how the picture was taken, they didn't zoom in on your face, so with mine, it made me look like I didn't have acne at all! that was nice.
I have always had my hair down for the photos, and that seems to work well. My Mass license looks like I have a really big head! So just be prepared for that. They seem to like to fill the picture square with your head now. I just smile really big/nice like I am sooo happy! It turned out rather nice. having somebody with you to make sure that you're not growing green things out of your face, or having cowlicks on end is always helpful too

Don't sweat it.

LOL I compleatly forgot about this thread! I got my licence over a month ago and they just used my permit picture, which isn't too bad, but my hair was a little weird that day. Not messy, just weird

In our state (Maryland) people under 21 have to have their photo done in profile...for alcohol ID...when you are 21 you can have a frontal photo. (Of course this ignores all the various schemes for fake ID's.) I didn't worry too much about my drivers license, but all my working life we had to wear photo ID badges...all day, every day and it had to be showing (I worked for an intelligence agency.) My very first badge, which I had for nearly 15 years was made of aluminum and the photo was embossed on the metal. The border indicated your clearance status e.g. Green boarder meant you had a "Top Secret" clearance (which was just about everybody in the agency.) They only took one shot and you didn't see the photo until some delay for them to make the badge and for your final security clearance to be approved. The photo was usually taken on the first day of work. I had just driven 1000 miles from college to my new workplace in an un-airconditioned car and I had terribly chapped lips (and no lip balm...I hadn't been paid yet.) Just as they took the photo I unwittingly wet my lips...so for 15 years I had this photo with my tongue sticking out. They finally realized that 15 years was too long for such a badge and the aluminum badges cost too much to make so they went to a new badging system made of a plastic laminate. These badges usually only lasted 2-3 years at the most, but it was cheap and easy to get a new one. Once digital photo came into being they would let you look at a photo to see if you liked the photo. If you needed a new badge and liked a photo and hadn't change much physically you could ask to have the old photo reused...they just called it up on the computer that made the badges. This was actually a big morale booster among agency employees that since we had to wear a badge that at least some effort was made to make it flattering. The people who took the pictures were given a short orientation on how to do elementary portraiture. Later these badges had info encoded in them so that you had to enter a PIN number to get past the guards in the building and to enter certain areas with even higher clearance levels. We could also use them to go to other agencies for meetings e.g. CIA, the White House, State Department.

Jon

In Australia, you can't smile them so everyone looks like criminals lol

^ Is that a recent thing? The latest license pic I got was 2 years ago, and you could still smile then!

My photo is awful haha i'm so pale in it! Deffo going to re-take it in a few months once i pass haha!!