Going The Wong Way I'm ALWAYS going the Wong way

Passport Pictures

Apr 24

Have you found that it’s fairly ridiculous how much people will charge you when you absolutely need something? Take passport pictures for example. There are specifications and guidelines such that most people won’t really want to study them in order to make their own pictures. So because of that, they’ll gladly just pay someone 8 bucks (or whatever it is) for a couple of 2” x 2” pictures of their face. Outrageous! Good thing you have other options.

I wanted to make some passport pictures for someone that I know because she needed more than the usual 2. Because of that, I’m not sure how much it would cost. And on top of that, I always thought it was unfortunate how much places would charge you for passport pictures anyways.

So I searched online, and I found this great tutorial that shows you how to make your own passport pictures! I followed the tutorial, but I used the Gimp instead.

The Gimp (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) is an Adobe Photoshop replacement that is both open-source AND free. That means that all of you cheap suckers out there can use this for nothing instead of that hacked version of Photoshop that you’re currently running (which is illegal both in law and in spirit). It’s also pretty robust in my opinion, but then again I’m not wizard at image manipulation anyways. Anyways, the Gimp has all of the necessary tools available but here are some helpful pointers from a beginner who already has done it. I didn’t want to just put the whole tutorial here because I didn’t make it. If you want to use it, then go there. However, for some completeness the steps are basically:

Basic Steps

  1. Measure from the chin to the top of the head to get the number of pixels.
  2. Calculate the DPI (dots per inch) that you’ll need for your particular picture because in the end you’ll need 1-1.375 inches from the chin to the top of the head.
    • Divide measured pixels from chin to the top of the head by how many inches you want (from 1 to 1.375 inches). That gives you pixels/inches which is the same as DPI.
  3. Do a fixed size select. Since you want a 2” x 2” picture in the end, you’ll have to multiply the DPI that you previously got by 2. So if you calculated a DPI of 530 as in the tutorial, then you would do a fixed size select of 1060 by 1060. Copy the selected area.
  4. Create a new file with a size of 4” x 6” (or whatever size you want, I actually made an 8.5” x 11”). Then change the resolution to whatever your DPI is.
  5. Paste however many pictures you need from your fixed size selection to the new file. Position them so that you’ll have room to cut them out, etc
  6. You’re done!

Helpful Hints

measure_tool The measuring tool is located in the toolbox as indicated. It works similarly to the Photoshop tool in the tutorial.

fixed_size When using the rectangle select, you don’t have to use the free select. Use the fixed size option as shown here (after doing the calculations in the tutorial).

new_image Make sure to specify the new file in inches according to how you want to print it. Then the resolution should be made to equal your DPI (this makes sure that your picture will turn out to be the right size).

Also, not to sound like a fanatic but long live open source software! :D

Update: if you specifically want a U.S. passport picture, the State Department has this Adobe Flash tool, which is extremely easy to use!

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