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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Make your own passport photos

A passport picture is just a small picture. at the size of 4.5cmX3.5cm (5cmX5cm American, 5cmX7cm Canadian and there may be other sizes for different countries.






Pictures taking required by Passport Office

* Two identical photos.
* Photos must be taken within last month.
* The photo must be taken against a light background (either white, off white, cream or light grey so that your features are distinguishable and contrast against the background).
* Clear and of good quality.
* Printed on low gloss, plain white photo-quality paper with no watermarks, embossing or printing on the back. Using professional or high-res inkjet printer
* Free from copyright (school photos are not acceptable)
* Unmounted 45mm high x 35mm wide. (do not trim bigger photos to meet this condition)
* Full face (without sunglasses and normally without a hat unless the applicant wears a head covering due to their religious beliefs or their ethnic background, which is acceptable)



Taking the photo:
Take a white sheet and used grips to tightly fasten it to a background. The grips pulled the sheet to create an even surface perfect for passport photos to be taken against. Placed a chair around a foot (30cm) in front of the background, this way a shadow from the subject wasn't cast in the picture. If you're using flash, having them this close to the background will also stop the picture from being underexposed or dark. If you are using flash remember to watch-out for red eye and reflections as these are not allowed to be on a passport photograph.

The picture is to be framed through the viewfinder so you will have a tight crop of the head and shoulders and take several images so you will have a variety to choose from. They are to be taken at full resolution, although as the image size is only going to be small you can use a lower setting of around 640x480 pixels.







Editing the Photograph:



Once you decided on the chosen image you place it into Photoshop to edit the size to meet the requirements of the Identity and Passport Service. This process is not manipulating the photograph, You don't alter the light or any of the facial features just the size of the image.

Methods:

The 640x480 dimensions are not quite the same proportions as the necessary for example 35x50mm Malaysia passport size, so when you reduce the image it won't be the exact size necessary. There's a useful trick that allows you to reduce the picture at the same time as making a crop.

In Photoshop when you select the Crop tool it gives you the option of specifying a fixed crop size to a necessary resolution. See the bar above. We've keyed in a 3.5cm width,5.0cm height and 300dpi resolution. Now when you make a crop it will save the crop to the size keyed in the figures, doing the whole job in one go.
Now we need to place two copies of the photo on a canvas ready to print. With the cropped picture still on view select All (Ctrl+A) and copy (Ctrl+C). Now select new (Ctrl+N).Your program will show a box that has the sizes of your picture already set. Make sure the background colour is light blue (Malaysia) and select Background Colour from the contents options (canvas colour). Change the dimensions to just over 2x the indicated height and width (8cm x 10cm will be fine) and click okay. Now click (Ctrl+V) to paste the picture you've just copied onto the newly opened light blue canvas.

Alternate Background color change:
With the picture open in the editing program make a selection of the colored background. Use either the lasso selection tool, the magic wand or a similar, to draw around the hair and then use the +/- selection keys to make the selection accurate around the hairline. Feather the selection using a pixel value of around 30. This will be enough for our 640x480 resolution and ensures that the changes you make to the background don't make the photo look like a bad cut out..
Now we will change the background to make it to the color of choice. Select layer, set desired foreground color and press Option/Alt+Delete. To apply background color press Command/Ctrl+Delete. Also, you can use paint bucket tool. See Also Here


Use the Move tool to drag the picture into the top left corner. Then paste the second picture into place (Ctrl+V) and again move this so that it aligns up to the first pic leaving a small gap between the two that will be used to cut the pictures when printed.

As we're going the traditional passport booth route we've printed four on a sheet. Aligning the bottom two below the first two. The other two can be sent off to Nan and boyfriend for purse/wallet fodder! When you have everything aligned use the Crop tool to trim off any unwanted surround, again leaving a slight white border around the set of four photos for trimming purposes when printed.

Next we are ready to print. Hopefully you will have a program that allows you to set up the printing specs. The passport leaflet indicates that a resolution of 1440dpi is necessary. Most modern printers output at this resolution. So choose the 'best' print setting. Also use high quality paper. We've gone for the 4x6in 180gsm Inkjet paper. If there's an option centre the image and select 4x6 from the list of paper sizes. Do not select 'scale to fit media' because this will enlarge the photos making them too big. VIA

How do I change the background color of a passport picture in photoshop cs4.?
The easiest way to do this would be to trace around the face using either the pen tool or the polygonal lasso tool (using a 1px feathering on the polygonal lasso usually works well with 150dpi effects, 2-3px feathering on 300dpi). Once you've done this, hit control+J to copy your selection onto a new layer precisely above the original layer. This way, you can play with the color replacement of the original layer without compromising the face itself.

As far as changing the color, the 'replace color' function is the easiest route - You'll find it under Image > adjustments > replace color. Then just click on the background color with your eyedropper, adjust the fuzziness slider until only the background is selected, and change the color using the palette on the toolbar. You may have already tried this and gotten the blue 'bleed' you were describing - but if you have the face copied to a top layer as described above, you won't get that bleeding issue.


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