I had problems with all three of the photos of my children.
I decided that two of the three were acceptable, overrode the rejections and they were fine. One of those rejections was for the picture being too light, but he is just naturally pale skinned.
The third was rejected for shadows. I decided that I could do no better with our lighting, the only suitable bit of wall, a window to one side and his hair that cast the shadows and so I paid for a professional photograph for him.
+1 - I think following the guide is key. I just used my phone camera and they were accepted first time.
You can read and try to follow the guide but actually getting the results……
Our problem was finding somewhere with the right background and lighting.
Yep. I found that it was easy to get a photo using the camera on a tripod, self-timer, and sitting in front of a cream-coloured painted wall, but the problem was shadows behind my head when the flash went off. I tried lighting the wall behind, but then the camera exposure of my face was too dark! Spot focussing on my face gave that the correct exposure, but then the wall behind was too light.
Probably flash partially bounced off the ceiling would have given a better result, but although I could have done that in the past with my SLR and off-camera flash, it isn't possible with my digital compact camera.
Yes I found that to be the case with my wife and both daughters!
This was despite taking pictures against a landing wall which is a plain buttermilk emulsionbehind them and a 3 x 4 LED landing ceiling light in front of them and above the photographer's hwad. This was also despite using a 10 MP camera on a tripod.....
All had been rejected as being too dark.....
Cue many retries still no further forward....
Then I loaded the photos into photoshop and clicked on "auto-correct" and saved....
These autocorrected pictures then uploaded first time!
Autocorrect automatically adjusts the brightness, contrast and the colour balance......
S.
A light or 2 in lieu of flash for diffused infill often works well enough.
Why not? Many flashguns have the ability for photocell triggering. No wires needed and no physical synchronisation to the camera. The camera flash goes off and the slave immediately triggers.
I have had a my own passport photo accepted - although they do state no post software manipulation but I did adjust the cropping to meet the dimensional requirements in their guide. Although I wear glasses I removed them for the photo, as suggested in their guidance.
I can't remember clearly how I did it - camera phone propped on a chair, white wall background. Shadows an issue - combo of natural light and a lamp IIRC.
I've used bounce flash with a digital compact for passport photos by holding a piece of white card (or folded white paper) in front of the flash at an angle of c.45~60 degrees so it bounces off the ceiling & walls*. Trial and error to get an acceptable result but with digital there's little cost in time or money.
*may need to adjust white balance for the colour of your ceiling or wallsNo, they don't even like the ones that the so called expert at post offices passes sometimes. They don't like the rounded corners some booths do. In the end I went to a local Pharmacy, and got them to take the pictures and then did it all the old postal way, and those were passed. I often wonder if you photoshopped one to look really bland, if they would pass it as bland seems to be what they want. So far I've only had to get a passport in order to get credit. I've never been abroad with it. Not being a driver, is the same kind of vetting done for driving licences, as it surely is not for other things like posh cards and Taxi-cards and blue badges. Being blind I thought I'd best get a passport otherwise I'd not be allowed to vote from this May, apparently. Brian
Interesting. I ended up having to remove my glasses, and to be honest, seeing as they are only these days used to stop poking your eye out when out, OK. I did point out that this might not therefore look like me if I wore glasses and was told, no problem they can always ask you to remove them if they are unsure. Its very interesting that we are still relying on photos in these days of Photoshop and being able to graft cats faces on people on a phone. Is it not time to chip us like our pets? Brian
Not come across that idea. I never get decent photos from them, hence going to a pharmacy with a good track record, and all done in about ten minutes. Brian
And just how would they know it was altered, you can easily remove such watermarking and properties and resave it. I never got into any computer codes stuff and it was only last year. Brian
The background in my case was simply a back lit white wall, There was frontal lighting but no flash, as that can produce strange eye effects I was told. The back lit shade is made to contrast with hair. It had me wondering about the many people who seem to change their hair colour every week, though. Was there not a famous case at the public carriage office where three brothers who were all very similar were driving the same minicab for several years, with it on the road all day and night with just the one test taken by the one with best English. This was in London. Brian
As a blind person of course, I had to be guided by others, and even the official bloke at the post office got it wrong. Brian
A little worrying though, when you consider that the whole point is it is supposed to look like you, and your skin colour etc should be right, not what some algorithm thinks is right. You will no doubt not be looking exactly the same when you are being scrutinised to see if its you. Brian
I'm told the native JPEG file you submit is also stored on the chip that's embedded into the passport.
The ultimate "my appearance has changed" is growing a beard. My dad grew a beard in the early 1970s (he still has it, although it's white nowadays) and at the time there was no mechanism for handling with/without beard photos, so he had to have a second photo taken, pasted in the "spouse" part of the passport (at a time when wives could travel on their other husband's passport) with a big endorsement "alternative photograph of bearer" in case any passport official might have thought he had a bearded wife ;-)
I'm not sure how the situation is handled nowadays, especially with someone who changes regularly between beard and no-beard. I worked with a chap who grew a white beard every autumn in time to play Santa, and then shaved it off in January until the following autumn. I gather that passport officials are trained to see past trivial things like changes in beard, hairstyle and makeup, to see the invariant things like eye and ear size/shape.
are we still talking about passport photos ;-)
I had a colleage who had a "winter beard", because he was too mean to turn the hot water supply on in the winter so he could shave before going to work. Mind you, we did start work at 8am.
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