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Passport type photographs

Avatar Drew McFarlane
Hi all,

May I have some help please in producing passport type photographs.

I have two Sony cameras, a NEX-7 and a DSC-HX50. I have never taken a portrait before and only use the cameras whilst on holiday.

I realise I can have them done in a Photo Booth or in a photo shop but would like to have a go myself.

Drew

Re: Passport type photographs

Avatar Mick Burrell
Look at the passport site - there are very strict guidelines as to size, the area the face fills, pose and longevity of print. I decided it was too much hassle to produce at home! However, if you do, you could try dropping the photos into Pages in a box the right size.

Re: Passport type photographs

Avatar Drew McFarlane
Hi Mick,

I realise that there are strict guidelines re passport photographs, I just wanted to have a go myself, and as my photographic skills are just as bad as my computer skills I just wanted to seek advice on the best way forward.

Re: Passport type photographs

Avatar Lionel Ogden
Have you thought of using Photo Booth. You have to make sure you have a plain background. It's a long time since I applied for a passport, but I used this method to apply for a bus pass which has similar requirements to passport photos. However they are less strict.

Re: Passport type photographs

Avatar Eric Jervis
I think you're being overly cautious Drew, I used a pic I'd taken myself when my granddaughter needed a passport, and there were no problems.

Re: Passport type photographs

Avatar Lionel Ogden
Did the passport officials not notice that a young ladies' passport had the photo of a mature gentleman.

Oh sorry, I didn't notice the "of" was missing.

Re: Passport type photographs

Avatar Eric Jervis
Ha ha ha...

Re: Passport type photographs

Avatar Tony Still
No evidence that I can see of "mature" ...

I have successfully submitted ink-jet printed photos for passports. The passport office is very strict so you need to be sure that you aren't smiling, blinking etc and that you are against a light-coloured plain background. If you wear glasses, be extra careful: my wife's photos were rejected some years ago because her glasses frame was allegedly obscuring her eyes - I had checked and didn't think that was the case but they know best.

Given a suitable start photo, I have created a Pages file with a template for the various constraints. You make the photo 50% transparent, position and resize it over the template until it meets the size rules then mask it with the frame of the template to create a kosher passport photo. Pages prints it spot-on for size so long as you use 100% size printing (doh). The template isn't difficult to create or I can send you mine.

Re: Passport type photographs

Avatar Peter Shepheard
I had someone from the passport office phone me and ask about the photograph I had submitted last time I renewed. He said he would accept it but they were not normally accepting home produced photos. The text on their web site says:
Photos must:

measure 45mm by 35mm
be printed on high quality, medium / low gloss or matt photographic paper (photos printed at home are not usually clear enough to measure facial biometrics)
not be printed on heavy weight paper, like cardboard
not be printed on corrugated paper
have a backing that allows the countersignatory to certify one of the photos and sign in ink, without smearing

See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/passport-photos-guide-for-photographers/guidance-for-photographers for more details.

It's good to know other have "got away with it" but make sure you follow the rules.

Re: Passport type photographs

Avatar Tony Still
Peter,

I read those words with a little trepidation too. I should have said that I printed on glossy photo paper that I thought counted as photographic paper. I think they would have been hard put to distinguish my pics from a photo machine but it's clearly important to use good quality picture, printer and paper.

What do you think gave yours away or did you accidentally send a picture of Shaun?

Re: Passport type photographs

Avatar Lionel Ogden
I would have thought that the quality you can produce at home at least equals that produced by the photo booth in the supermarket which purports to produce "passport quality " photos.

Re: Passport type photographs

Avatar Drew McFarlane
Thank you all for your help, I finally produced a passport type photograph using "Pages" as suggested by Tony.

Many years ago, using a Canon Powershot camera and the software that came with it I produced passport photographs which were accepted by the Passport Office first time. The software came with instructions for, dare I say it, Microsoft.

Re: Passport type photographs

Avatar John Nicholas
On our last passport renewal I submitted photo's produced using "custom size" with iPhoto having taken the shot on a non-Apple (!!) smartphone. Mine were accepted but my wife's were rejected due to "quality". Oh dear I thought; but I took a further pic of her, repeated the process, and lo it was accepted.

Unless somebody has a better way (they probably do) , I keep a "blank" photo in the Library which I use to avoid just one custom photo appearing in the middle of an A4 sheet and wasting glossy photo-paper. This also proves useful when printing ordinary pics for positioning the one i want in a particular portion of the A4 sheet. You can use one or multiple blanks to achieve the objective. Now somebody will say "oh silly, haven't you found the photo positioning button, duh" !!, but I don't mind; always willing to learn.

Can't remember now how I created a "blank". Either Pages/ rectangle shape white infill, no border, no drop-shadow/ save as jpg ?, OR untitled Pages page/export this blank sheet as pdf & load in to Photo ?
 
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