Studies in Computer Sciences and Practices in Software Engineering / Make Every Day a Free Passport Photo Day

Make Every Day a Free Passport Photo Day

Download beta version of the Software here. An instruction on how to use the software can be found here.

Do-it-yourself Passport Photo

If you're a cheap bastard like I, you probably resent having to pay the ten to twenty dollars price tag for a Polariod snap shot of passport photo that looks like a mug shot. Eh no, it won't look like this:

Tom DeLay Mug shot

Experiences in taking passport photos.

Years ago, to make my own passport photo, I used to a) take half a roll of film worth of portraits of different head size using my Nikon 2002, b) had it developed in double prints in Walmart, c) choose a good looking one with the right size of the head, and d) cut it into the required 2"x2" picture size. It takes a lot of time and energy and costs about as much as what a portrait studio would charge. Well, it wasn't about the cost, it was about personal pride. For the worth of all the trouble, I, or my son, didn't have to look like a prisoner in the passport.

The task is much easier today, thanks to the readily available digital cameras and photo editing software. You can take as many pictures as you want, until you get the one where you look perfect in it.

Wait, don't rush to your local supermarket just yet. Although it only cost you around a quarter dollar each when you made some prints last time, it probably will cost you more, 40x more, to make a print in the format required by the passport agent.

See, to format your print to be suitable for passport, you need to use the software in the photo kiosk. You have to pay extra for the these value added service. Never mind that it cost only $4 for a 8"x10" print, these two little 2"x2" will cost you upwards to $10, unless you don't have to use the Kiosk's formating software.

Here's the time to fire up the photo editing software in your home computer. First, you need to get a square picture where the height of you head is just over a half of the height of the picture. An easy way to make sure your head will be in the right size in your picture is to first crop down your head, and find out the pixel size of the height of your head. Then crop from the original picture again, this time, make the width and height equal to 1.5x to 2x of the height of the head (say the height of your head is found to be 1000 pixels, then make the side of the picture at 1500 - 2000 pixels). Chances are, your photo editing software has the functionality to scale the photo, so scale the square picture to 800 pixel x 800 pixel. Next, create a blank picture of size 2400 pixel x 1600 pixel. Copy and paste, twice, the scaled square picture to the blank picture. line up the pasted portrait vertically along the left edge. Now if you take your picture down to your local supermarket and make a 4"x6" print for $0.19, you got two portraits of yourself, exactly as required. Works like charm!

At this point, you may already figured out that if you follow the instructions above, you'll waste 2/3 of the real estate of your print. You know how to make use of it!

Some tips to make a good picture:

Most important thing is to make sure to find a light colored background with no visitable pattern and texture, or risk the picture being rejected. The picture of my four month old was rejected because some texture of the bed sheet where I put here when taking the picture was visible.
Stand a feet or so from the background wall.
Remove your eyeglasses (spectacles), even professional studio has problem avoiding reflection, or glare, from the eyeglasses.
Avoid using flash.
Use a lens with focal length no less than 50 mm.

Of course, if you make a mistake, you can alway get the $15 snap shot. Wherever you go to get your passport, they'd love to take it for you! Last time when I get a passport, I was asked if I need pictures taken, at the time when I made the appointment, again when I arrived for the appointment, then again when my number was called.

DIY Passport Photos Instructions:

Import the photo you want to use in your passport.
Move the frame so it just encloses the head. Notice the area that will be included in the final picture is displayed in color.
Double click anywhere within the picture area. This will place the area displayed in color in the resulting picture.
This procedures can be repeated up to three times, to create three pairs of passport photos.

Notice that there's no constraint in the width of the face to appear in the picture (after all, the aspect ratio of your face is hardly under your control). So you have a lot of play in positioning the vertical lines of the rectangle. This allow you to place the face off center to your pleasing. Please don't over do it though, as your face will most likely be centered in the picture in the end product (your passport) anyway.
When a satisfactory result is achieved, export the picture and print it in 4x6 in your favorite place.

To do:

Allow user to create more than two identical photos. This can best be achieved by allowing user to switch back and forth between the photo grid and the imported photo.
Allow user to adjust the position of the head in the picture.
Improve the responsiveness of the software. At the minimum, do not let the line be dropped while dragging.
Erase any background pattern.

11:53:05 PM on 10/17/2006 by x mar - Category: General

Comments

Ryan wrote:

This is a great tool! I would add the eye height and cernter of face marking guides also.

01/31/2007 10:12:38 AM

Susan wrote:

Do you have a version that will remove the background? I have a school picture that I actually like, but the background is blue. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Susan

02/09/2007 06:07:44 PM

rich camlin wrote:

what a great little Program. Moving the handle is a little jerky; and you tend to lose the handle if you move too far away to quickly.

But it is still an outstanding program

Would like to keep updated if possible

02/19/2007 08:30:39 PM

Mr. Anonymous wrote:

Necessity is the mother of all inventions. If you have the need, and don't want to pay like $8.00 for mug shots, then you might want to roll up your sleeves and start coding.

I can clearly see that it was written with the right intentions. I think if people who have the C#/.Net skill can download and update this project or send your updated source code to the original author, it could potentially beat every other professional program out there in the market.

Great Job!.

03/06/2007 11:20:40 PM

Deepa Reddy wrote:

such a fantastic little tool -- thanks so much for thinking of it, creating it, and then putting it out there for the rest of use to use! We needed 6 pics each for 4 of us, and this saved us a bundle. Three cheers to all the generosity of inventors out there,
Deepa

04/08/2007 05:25:38 PM

Bob wrote:

It is just great! Thank you.

07/01/2007 04:00:49 PM

Yehuda Hecht wrote:

Hi there,

We at https://www.paspic.com/usa/ just started our services on your side of the Pond.
We are offering FREE – registration and upload! Our automated patent pending service checks instantly if your photo fits the Passport Services Office requirements and cuts it to size, 100% fiddling free!
If you decide to order a hardcopy from we print it for you on Passport Approved photographic paper and deliver it to you for $6.99. Postage is free,
Have a nice day
Yehuda Hecht

07/19/2007 06:41:00 PM

Karen Slona wrote:

Hey Yehuda Hecht, one does not need photographic paper as ink jet photo paper is Passport aproved. I was going to take the final product to the lab, but why waste gas and plution when your ink jet is accepted!

And Mr. Anonymous GREAT IDEA!!! People who can code like you say should send that to the Saintly inventor of this software to improve this already cool Saintly product.

Remember Mother Tressa required Poor people to sell thier souls for free food, but this true Saint unconditionally does the good deed. AKS a True Saint.

God bless the developer, and may God make him even more smarter!

08/27/2007 12:54:54 AM

Karen Tam wrote:

Interesting idea. A few days ago I came accross a cool site for creating passport photos for free -http://www.epassportphoto.com/

I really liked it...

10/25/2007 01:32:26 PM

mark chan wrote:

thanks! i need this badly....i gotta take pics and run to the visa office in 1 hour!

01/22/2008 02:28:43 PM

free dvd downloads wrote:

Great site. Thanks for the info man. I really needed it!!

Keep cool!

03/04/2008 04:56:36 PM

Prasad wrote:

I would be wonderful if gap in between photos. Then, it is cut without problem.

Thank you for nice and handy tool.

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