Passport Photos

I'm applying for a new passport on Monday and needed to get current passport photos. Usually I get them from Kinko's (now called FedEx) so I got a set today. I have an international passport which takes a 3.5x4.5cm picture and the guy at Kinko's said they'd only do US passport pictures which are 2x2 inches. OK, I said, just make it a little smaller by moving the camera back. In the good old days with their Pollariod camera this used to work. But now, with their "improved" digital setup, I ended with a set of pictures which look a bit dark (I imagine their flash is calibrated for a fixed distance).

And then I though to myself, heck my camera is way better than the POC they use at Kinko's, I should be able to shoot my own damn passport photos. So within half an hour I had a good set of clean shots. Then I laboriously layed them out in Photoshop (I use it once in a blue moon, so I always struggle).

And then I thought to put google to use and discovered ePassportPhoto which makes it trivial to create a 4x6" collage of passport photos -- both standard and US sized! So now I'll have a mediocre set of 2 photos from Kinko's for $14 and a great set of 8 photos printed at Costco for $0.18!