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Making your own photo stamps is a quick, fun way to personalize your mail. Our How to Make Photo Stamps guide will show you the simple steps to get you mailing in no time.
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Making your own photo stamps is a quick, fun way to personalize your mail. Our How to Make Photo Stamps guide will show you the simple steps to get you mailing in no time.
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Introduction
- Making your own USPS-authorized postage stamps using digital images of your family, pet, or favorite football team is a way to personalize your cards and letters and send an extra treat to everyone on your mailing list.
Step 1: Choose Your Photo
- Use all the great digital photos you've taken this year to create photo stamps. Or, scan in an old favorite.
- Decide who or what should be on the stamp: your dog, your new baby, an old photo of your grandfather in his Air Force uniform.
- You can also scan in drawings your kids have made and turn those into stamps.
- Close-up shots are generally better. Because the stamp is small, any shot taken from far away or with too many people in it will be hard to appreciate.
- Make sure the resolution on your photo is good. Most sites recommend images with 200 pixels per inch. Size varies, but stamp sites quote a range of approximately 250 pixels by 350 pixels, either measured horizontally or vertically.
- If you'd rather not put you or your family on a stamp, there are other customized choices available, such as football team stamps or college logo stamps.
Step 2: Use a Stamp-Making Site
- A few websites specializing in photo stamps make creating your own postage quick and easy. Beware of imitators; always look for the USPS symbol to be sure the stamps you have chosen are authorized to mail. Three popular vendors are:
Upload Your Photo
- You'll need a digital photo to make your stamps. If you have a printed photo you wish to use, you can scan it into your computer and edit it to meet the necessary specifications.
- Note there are some restrictions based on content, or if a photo is too dark to print, but there appears to be a real freedom of choice.
- The upload process should take no more than a few minutes.
Make Final Touches
- You can zoom, rotate your image, create borders, or make other changes to your photo.
- Choose a horizontal or vertical orientation. Depending on the original image and your composition, one way will likely look much better.
- You can choose the color of your postage.
- Sites may offer advice on what looks good—if a font you've chosen is too dark to show up, for example.

Preview Carefully
- Make sure your stamp looks just how you want it to look before placing your order!
- A couple of the sites we experimented with allowed users to cancel an order if they did so very soon after placing it.
- You can also save your design and come back to it later, or email it to friends for advice.
- You will have to choose a size of stamp (most sites offer small, medium, and large with each size appropriate for different envelope sizes).
- It's not a bad idea to get out a ruler and sample envelope to see exactly what size your stamp will be and how it will look before you mail it.
Place Your Order
- Make sure you've chosen the correct postage, depending on if you plan to send postcards ($0.26), regular mail ($0.41), or something heavier.
- Choose a shipping method depending on how fast you want your stamps to arrive. Don't forget it will generally take up to a few days to process your stamps before they can ship.
- Most online photo stamp sites sell stamps in sheets of 20.
- Usually, the more stamps you order, the cheaper they become.
Step 3: Mail Away!
- Now for the hardest part—parting with your beautiful stamps!
- Note that most photo stamps are larger than the average postage stamp, so leave enough room on your envelopes.
- Now that you've stored your information with one of the photo stamp sites, you can easily re-order or create new stamps for another occasion.
Get Creative
- Many people have enjoyed using their photo stamps on wedding invitations, birth announcements, or store grand openings (with an image of the company logo, for example).
- You can also make stamps that will correspond to birthday party invitations, graduation announcements, or other seasonal themes.
- Try using photo stamps on your Christmas cards. If you've made a photo card for the holidays that features only the children, you might use a photo stamp to include the family pet.
- Finding an old photo of your grandparents on the their wedding day might be perfect to scan and create a stamp to use on their 60th anniversary party invites.
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