# Headshot Photo Checker A free tool that checks whether a selfie is sharp, well lit and framed closely enough to work as a professional headshot source photo. Checks run in your browser. Your photo never leaves your device. ## How to use it 1. **Pick a photo:** Drop a JPG, PNG, WebP or HEIC into the checker, or choose one from your phone. The photo is read on your device and is never uploaded. 2. **Read the four checks:** Face found, sharpness, lighting and face size in frame each show pass or fix, with one line telling you what to change. A summary at the top says whether the shot is ready. 3. **Fix and retake:** Most fixes take a minute: step back, face a window, wipe the lens, or ask someone to hold the phone. Check the new photo the same way. 4. **Use it as a source photo:** Photos that pass here are the kind the Smart Headshots AI intake asks for. Collect eight to fifteen of them and start your headshots. ## Distance and lens: take a step back The single biggest difference between a selfie and a source photo is distance. A phone lens held at arm's length is very close to your face, and at that range it widens the nose and jaw and pushes the ears back. It looks normal because you see it every day, but an AI model trained on those frames learns the distortion as your face. Ask someone to take the photo from about 1.5 m or 5 ft, or prop the phone up and use the timer. If your phone has a 2x or 3x lens, use it. Then let the face fill roughly a fifth of the frame width or more. Standing further away and cropping later is fine, as long as the crop is still sharp. ## Light: face the window Soft, even light from the front is what a studio does with big diffusers, and a window on an overcast day does it for free. Stand facing the window with the camera between you and the glass, so the light lands on your face and not behind you. Open shade outdoors works the same way. Avoid overhead ceiling lights on their own, which put shadows under the eyes and nose, and avoid direct midday sun, which does the opposite and blows out the skin. If the checker says the frame is dark, move closer to the window or turn on a lamp in front of you rather than raising the phone's exposure. ## Framing: face and shoulders, camera at eye level Frame from the top of the head to just below the shoulders, with your face near the centre. Keep the camera at eye level: shooting from below adds chin and shooting from above shrinks the jaw, and neither survives into a good headshot. Look straight at the lens or turn a quarter to one side. Keep hair off the face, take off sunglasses, and keep hands away from the chin. Plain backgrounds help, but the background matters far less than the face being large, sharp and lit. ## What this checker cannot see The four checks measure things a browser can measure: whether a face is present, how much fine detail survives, how bright the frame is, and how much of the width the face takes up. They do not judge expression, clothing, background clutter, filters, or whether the photo is recent and looks like you today. The paid intake runs a stricter vision check on every photo and will turn down shots this tool passes, for example a face partly covered, a strong side angle, or heavy beauty smoothing. Treat a pass here as a good sign, not a promise. If the finished headshots fall short, every order has a full refund inside 7 days. ## FAQ ### How to take a headshot with iPhone? Have someone hold the phone about 1.5 m or 5 ft away, or prop it up and use the timer, and switch to the 2x or 3x lens if you have one. Stand facing a window with the phone between you and the glass, keep the camera at eye level, and frame head and shoulders. Turn off any beauty or smoothing mode before you shoot. ### How many photos do I need for AI headshots? Smart Headshots AI asks for eight to fifteen source photos. Aim for a few angles, a couple of expressions, and different clothes and places, but the same hairstyle throughout and nothing older than about a year. Three or four of them should be taken from a step back by someone else. ### Is it okay to use AI for headshots? Yes, and it is common for LinkedIn, company pages and dating profiles. The honest line is that the photo should still look like you: same face, same hair, a realistic setting. Our headshots carry provenance metadata that declares them as AI generated, so anyone who checks the file can see how it was made. ### Is my photo uploaded when I use the checker? No. The photo is decoded and checked in your browser, and the small face model runs on your device too. Nothing is sent to our servers, and reloading the page clears the photo. ### Does it work with HEIC photos from an iPhone? Yes. HEIC and HEIF files are converted to JPEG in your browser before the checks run, which can take a second or two on a phone. JPG, PNG and WebP are read directly. ### What does face size in frame mean? It is how wide the detected face is compared with the width of the whole photo. Around a fifth of the frame width or more is the rule of thumb, because a small face leaves too little detail for a headshot model to learn from. The fix is almost always to move the camera closer or crop tighter, as long as the crop stays sharp. ### Why does a sharp photo still get a warning? Each check is independent. A photo can be perfectly sharp and still be too dark, have the face too small, or contain a second person. The sharpness check also looks at the whole frame, so a busy background can read as sharp while the face itself is slightly soft; if in doubt, zoom in on the eyes. ### Does passing the checker mean my photo will be accepted? Not by itself. This is a quick check of four measurable things. The paid intake runs a stricter vision model that also looks for side angles, coverings, sunglasses and filters, and it can turn down a photo that passed here. Passing all four checks does mean you are close. ## Related headshot packs - [Professional Headshots](https://www.smartheadshots.ai/professional-headshots): A professional headshot is a head and shoulders portrait, evenly lit against a plain or softly blurred background, used to represent you on company websites, staff directories, email signatures, conference programs and press coverage. - [LinkedIn Headshots](https://www.smartheadshots.ai/linkedin-headshots): A LinkedIn headshot is a head and shoulders portrait, framed for the circle crop LinkedIn applies, that represents you on your profile, in recruiter search results and beside every message and comment you post. ## Links - [Create your headshots](https://www.smartheadshots.ai/start) - [All free tools](https://www.smartheadshots.ai/tools) - [Home](https://www.smartheadshots.ai/)