As mentioned in my previous post, one of my priorities this month is to make a new passport. Which means I need to have a "passport-sized" photograph. One of the minor things in life that I just always seem to have problems with...

I'm sure I'm not the only person with this minor gripe. How many times have you gone to the photo booth/shop to get your passport-sized photos, and have the photos turn out, to put it simply, unsatisfactory? You'd check the mirror before sitting down to get your picture taken. You'd comb your hair properly. You'd perfect that smile. You'd prepare your facial expression. You'd hope for the best after the flash goes off. But when you see your printed out photos, you'd be disappointed. Your hair was flat. Your smile was crooked. Your eyebrows looked funny. Your eyes was almost three-quarter-closed. There goes your 6 bucks.

The other thing that didn't add up to me was the price as well. You get like 6 small photos of yourself, right? For S$6? That's 1 buck each? Wait, how much was that 4R print-out of the Esplanade I just printed out just now? By machine, S$0.50? If I had sent in bulk, it would've been just S$0.30 per piece? Okay... So why does 6 x small photos of yourself cost S$6 then?

Anyway, years of getting my passport-sized photographs taken with disappointment each time lead me to this solution. Hey, I've got my own digital camera, why don't I just do it myself? Yep. I went and got it done myself. This is what I did.

Getting prepared. What do I need? A digital camera. Check. Knowledge of what is approved for a photograph meant for the passport. Check. I went to the ICA website to find out the requirements. I recommend at least skimming through the list to know what kind of photograph is approved. For the setup, this is what you basically need :

1. As mentioned, a digital camera (they recommend at least a 2.0 Megapixel digicam)
2. A white background
3. Um... That's pretty much it really. Hahaha. I guess a photo-editing program is kinda necessary. And the knowledge of using it.

I sat in front of a white wall. Well... A blue/green speckled white wall, but hey, close enough. I can easily white-out the specks later in Photoshop. It's easier if you can find a nice flat-white wall to pose in front of though. By the way, it's best if you are actually seated a little distance away from the wall so that you don't get such a strong shadow when the flash of your camera goes off. Also, if you're doing this during the day, make sure the window is in front of you, rather than on your side or back. This is so that you don't get uneven lighting on your face when the picture is taken. Oh, and check out the other things to note when taking the picture, in the ICA website.

Get someone to help you take the picture. Or if you have a tripod stand (like me), you can just position the tripod stand about a meter away from you and set the timer. What I did was I positioned my digicam on my tripod stand and then, I asked my brother to take my picture for me. Haha. (By the way, come onnnn, no tripod, you can still use that coffee table to prop up your digital cameraaaa! Some people ahhhhh... :P)

Guess how many times I got my picture taken before I was happy with the result? I'll treat the winner to a meal! You get only one guess, okay? Hahahaa.

Once you're done, resize your image to 400 by 514 pixels at 72 dpi (normal resolution for usage on the internet, etc). At this point, I've done all the touch-ups I need to... Rotated my image slightly so that it's straight, colour-corrected it, white-out the background, unsharp-masked the image... Removed a bit of the pimples... Hahaha. :P Keep in mind that you cannot digitally remove any of your facial features "that constitutes a permanent facial feature", for example, your moles or birthmarks. Technically, you cannot do any "alteration, removal, amendment or enhancement of the photo image", but I figured my pimples are not going to be there forever, so there's no harm. Hurhurhur. :P

That's pretty much all you need to do really. At this point, you can just print out the image and you'll have your passport-sized photograph. But that's not really cost-effective, yah? So, I tiled up my images on a 4R-sized document template (4 inches x 6 inches, at 300 dpi), and I got 8 of 'em lined up nicely. Note that I placed them all in the middle? That's so there are some space for the trimming when the picture's sent to be printed.

Ta-daaaa. :P

I burned the image to a CD-ROM, along with several other images that I wanted to print out. Granted, that's a waste of a CD-ROM if you only want to print out one image, but you can also use your digital camera's memory card to store the image to bring to the shop. Pretty much all the shops that offer digital printing have card readers. But a CD-ROM is only about less than a dollar nowadays, especially if you buy in spindles of 100. Anyway, I went to one of those Do-It-Yourself printing machine and printed out my pictures for like S$0.50 each.

After printing your picture out, you can ask the lady at the counter to help you cut it, or you could, like me, cut it up yourself... Hahaha.

The lady at the counter was busy just now, didn't want to disturb her. :P

Seems a bit tedious, eh? Well, this is just an alternative to forking out S$6 for pictures that might end up unsatisfactory. If you use the picture for a new passport, that's going to be there for the next 5 years or so. If you don't care so much, that's fine, but this is a solution for people like me. Hahaha. :P

Tomorrow I'll update on how many of the items on my list that I've bought already, okay? Hahaha. Happy Labour Day! :D