November 2017 (updated May 2020), Author: Serge Mikeyev

Error: Illumination appears to be poor

When you upload your photo for the US visa or passport online application on the US department of state website you may get this error The submitted photo did not meet the image quality requirements, Illumination appears to be poor.

Possible Reasons

This error may happen because of several different problems:

• Hair comes close to eyes
• Shadows around eyes
• Face lit not evenly: one half is bright and another is in shadow
• Overall illumination and brightness of the photo is bad
• Background is bad and not light and uniform enough

What can you do about this error?

You need to take a new photo and upload it again. Note, you can get a new correct photo with your phone or digital camera with Visafoto.com online. Photos made with Visafoto.com are accepted in 99.7% of cases.

Note: Photo upload failures at DS-160 or similar forms on the US Dept of State website is not a big problem, as you can try again and again until you upload a correct one.

Resume:

• Not a big problem
• You will have to take a new photo