Passport Photos

nooneufo · December 22, 2005

When we got our RFE for additional photos for the Advanced Parole, we decided to do our own passport photos, as the people who take passport photos charge more than we think is reasonable. Here are my tips for taking these photos with a digital camera (3mp or better) when you don't have the nice studio.

Hang a white sheet behind and to either side of the person (like a box with them standing in front of the opening). Have them stand at least four feet in front of the background sheet. You should stand as far away as possible while keeping the subject filling half the view area to take the photo so that the depth of focus will cause the background to become diffuse. (Use only the optical zoom, not digital). Best to take this in full daylight in a bright room. If you have an external flash, bounce the flash off the floor to help remove shadows. (without a flash, you must postition the person/background so they are fully lit up by the diffused sunlight without creating shadows (the reason for the sheets). You can add more white sheets around the room and the floor to create less shadows and reflect more diffuse light as well).

The only difference I can see between taking my own photos and the ones you pay for, is that they have drawn on their digital camera LCD screen with an outline of the person to get the right size. I just take my photos of the persons head to be half the height of the screen, and let the edit adjust the rest.

After editing, take them to your local store to print (Walmart in my case, at their do it yourself machine). Cut to proper size.

Here are the three web pages I used to learn to take my passport pictures and edit them. I used Photoshop because thats what I use normally (it also seemed the best for size adjusting), but the other web pages describe how to do it with other methods as well:

http://www.dpchallenge.com/tutorial.php?TUTORIAL_ID=22

http://bigtrip.punklist.com/archives/000053.php

http://www.webuser.co.uk/forums/showflat.p...468/an/0/page/0

And most importantly, follow the specifications to check the edit of your pictures. Very clear information here:

http://travel.state.gov/passport/guide/guide_2081.html