2 x 2 passport photos: How to?

I used my D3100 with 18-55mm VR to take some of portrait kind pictures of my little newborn baby girl. I have done the cropping of the original images by following the guidelines on US passport website.

I now want to make the images to 2 x 2 size. And probably, put 6 such pictures on a 4 x 6 page and give it for printing.

Kindly advice how to do the resizing to 2x2 and how to multiply that one 2x2 to 6 counts on a single 4x6.

I have IRFANVIEW, Windows Live Photo gallery, Paint etc on my laptop.

Consider http://www.onthegosoft.com/passport_photo.htm

Small fee, but if you plan to go professional on passport photos, its a good investment. I have tried a few others, but this on gives you perfect 6 2x2s on a 6x4 paper. You can save to JPEG, and make as many prints as you want.

There is this Free service http://www.epassportphoto.com/

It is free to print on your own printer, a fee if you order JPEG from them. I did try it.

I did it once and will never do it again. Have you read the instructions? The head has to be a certain size within the 2"x2". It is so much money for a passport that going to Walgreen's and giving them a couple of dollars and knowing it is acceptable is well worth the money!

--
Judy
http://nichollsphoto.com/

This is what couple of CVS told me just now. I think they are out there for making good bucks.

CVS 1: We do not accept JPGs from your camera to be printed for a passport photo. No matter what, bring the baby here, we click, we charge $9.99 + tax.

CVS 2: You bring the JPG or we click the photo here, you crop or we crop, we will still charge you $9.99 + tax because we printed a passport photo for you.

Junk!

One of my friend has taken photo at his home, developed passport photos at CVS for $0.19 / photo.

I did my own photo and printed them myself,,, big mistake,,, a ten year passport deserves the Pro approach, after 5 years my photos are fading.

note the cost of the passport, and the cost of pro photos, and how long will they last. home print ink is rubbish, Good luck
--



http://s185.photobucket.com/albums/x223/eirianfa2002/?albumview=slideshow&mediafilter=images

http://s185.photobucket.com/albums/x223/eirianfa2002/Komandoo%202008/?albumview=grid

I just resized to 2x2 leaving a bit of headroom. I have done this twice with no problems. Two passport photos, wife and I, both times using an HP printer. $9+ seems pricey to me for what they have to do..........Ralph

learnerguy said:

I used my D3100 with 18-55mm VR to take some of portrait kind pictures of my little newborn baby girl. I have done the cropping of the original images by following the guidelines on US passport website.

I now want to make the images to 2 x 2 size. And probably, put 6 such pictures on a 4 x 6 page and give it for printing.

Kindly advice how to do the resizing to 2x2 and how to multiply that one 2x2 to 6 counts on a single 4x6.

I have IRFANVIEW, Windows Live Photo gallery, Paint etc on my laptop.

Click to expand...

One CVS says:

We print our 2x2 passport photos on a 4x6 sheet with 6 passport photos on it. We handover the 2 passport photos to you and charge you $9.99 + tax. We trash remaining 4 passport photos.

What should I say for this? Professionalism or shamelessness?

I just did my own passport photo over the weekend with my inkjet printer. Will tell you how it works out for me in a month or so when the passport comes hopefully without issues. Will also report back in 10 years after that .

The original photo you provide is not mounted into passports any more. The passport photo is rescanned and printed onto the passport page so the ink used for printing what you give them has no effect on the image in the passport years from now.

learnerguy said:

CVS 1: We do not accept JPGs from your camera to be printed for a passport photo. No matter what, bring the baby here, we click, we charge $9.99 + tax.

Click to expand...

This makes sense. Even though some photographers know what they're doing, CVS can't be expected to be prepared to compensate for the wide variety of crappy photos that will be handed to them by non-photographers, and by people who are only self-convinced that they are photographers.

I was reading the US Passport photo requirements and they are also worded to avoid unusable submissions, such as no camera phone photos. The US guidelines specify lighting setup and everything. I have the ability to properly do my own passport photos, but when the worth of my time is factored in, I'd rather just go down to the drugstore, have it done in 60 seconds, and get on with my day.

60 seconds does not work with a 5 week baby. Babies have their own time to wake up and sleep, their mood, face to remain straight and many other factors.

graybalanced said:

graybalanced wrote:

The US guidelines specify lighting setup and everything. I have the ability to properly do my own passport photos, but when the worth of my time is factored in, I'd rather just go down to the drugstore, have it done in 60 seconds, and get on with my day.

Click to expand...

Just make sure you read the instructions. Head size within the 2x2 etc etc etc. And hope that your picture meets their specs -- unless you have plenty of time to do it over if your picture flunks their test.

--
Judy
http://nichollsphoto.com/

Dont freak out over little things. I have used the software for myself, my family, and now I am the go-to guy for passport photos in my community. I just take a few portraits by making them stand in front of my kitchen wall (that is clean beige colored wall, free of any pictures, nails, etc), bring the picture to the software, make that head and shoulders fit in the software, and email them JPEGs. Make sure you use a flash that will bounce off the ceiling so that there is no shadow in the back. They go to Walmart and make a print for 10c or whatever it costs. And if you ask nicely, the lady at Walmart will even cut each picture in their commercial grade cutter, right there for you.

Plan B: CVS or Walgreens. $9.99 every time. Every single time.

My 10c worth. And no, I am not making anything on promoting it. Good luck.

I use IrfanView and Paint (Yes, the Windows Paint). Both are free. But once you know the trick you can use whatever software.

1. Use Paint to set a Canvas, resolution at 2420 x 1620.

2. Use IrfanView to crop out front facing picture. The face should be half the height. Normally, you should see a part of the shoulder. The crop should be a square, do not worry about resolution unless is too small. See next step.

3. Resize the picture to 800x800. Again, it should be a square to begin with. Click Copy.

4. From Paint, click Paste. You can now move the picture and drop it to the place you want. What I like about Paint is that you can fine adjust using the arrow keys.

5. Place the picture at offset (x, y) approximately (10,10) (10, 810), (810, 10) .... repeat until step 2-4. You should have 6 pictures arranged 3x2 in your view with a fine border. I also like to leave a fine line (1-2 pixels) in between for ease of cutting. I usually print 3 sets and decide which sets I want. And I usually ended up keeping all of them.

6. Upload it online and print! 6 passport photos on a 6x4 print for $0.21 with tax.

I have done it for at least a dozen passports. Not a single problem! Quality is way better than those paid services because I get to pick the photos I like.

First, I scanned in the template that was in the passport application, and opened it in PhotoShop. Next, I loaded the image for the passport into PhotoShop and added it as the top layer, and set the opacity if the layer to around 50% so I could see the template. Next, I resized the photo to fit within the template (with the face, from top of hair to chin, falling between the limits of the dotted and solid circles). Finally, I set the opacity to 100% and printed with the print size set to 2"x2". It worked perfectly on my Epson R1800 printer.
--
Jeff Peterman

Any insults, implied anger, bad grammar and bad spelling, are entirely unintentionalal. Sorry.
http://www.pbase.com/jeffp25
http://www.jeffp25.smugmug.com