Off-white means a blank wall. Not your sitting room.

What “off-white” actually is

A blank wall. Even light. No texture, frames, plants, or a door frame in the corner. Off-white is not beige, peach, cream living-room paint, or hospital green. Those look “light” on a phone and read as a colour cast in the file.

Stand about a metre from the wall so your head does not throw a shadow behind the ears. Put the light in front of you, not behind. A window behind the head blows the background and sinks the face. That is a common reason a “correct size” file still gets rejected.

Do not AI-remove the background

Cutout tools leave a halo around the hair and a paper-white field that does not match the light on the face. Officers and some automated checks treat that as an altered photo. Shoot a real blank wall. We measure brightness, cast, and uniformity on the pixels that are there. We do not judge interior design.

Questions

Is a slightly grey white wall OK?

Often, if it is plain and even. A yellow or brown cast is not “off-white.” Measure the file; do not trust the phone preview.

Can I use a white sheet behind a chair?

Yes if it is smooth, fills the frame, and does not wrinkle into shadows. A crumpled duvet will fail the uniformity check.

The file is 600×600 and under 240 kB. Why mention the wall?

Pixels and kilobytes are not the background test. A cream wall fails on colour and uniformity while the file size looks fine.