Gadgetory

if you're getting ready to go on vacation overseas somewhere you'll need a passport the whole application process is really time-consuming and expensive but the icing on the cake is that 10 to 15 dollar photo not many people know that you can actually take and print this photo yourself without paying for more than just the printing costs I'm Sharon Vaknin frissina here to show you how to stick it to the drugstores and bring your own passport photos all you need for this project is a camera your computer and a photo printer unless you take it to a store for printing to get started grab a friend and get yourself in front of a white or cream colored background like a wall or a piece of poster board now to get your photo approved you'll need to follow some guidelines first you have to be wearing your day-to-day clothing so take off any uniforms or costumes take off any headphones Bluetooth headsets or other electronic devices you can wear prescription glasses but tinted glasses or stunners are not okay finally wipe off any weird faces we're a neutral expression like a smile or a straight face when you refined your look have your friend ready the shot if there are any shadows around your head or on your face get rid of them by adding or removing light also make sure there isn't any glare on your face all of these things are taken into account when your passport goes through the approval process once the lighting looks good frame the shot so that there's plenty of headroom and that your cropped just below the shoulders when you're done get the photo on your computer by emailing it to yourself or uploading it from your SD card then head to the government's own photo cropping tool which you can get to from this web URL now upload your photo and zoom in or out and move the photo around to match your face with the green template when you're done hit crop photo then save photo to save it to your desktop now all you have to do is print it you can put it on a thumb drive and take it to your local copy center or print it out on your own photo printer the printed photo should be 2 inches by 2 inches so if you need to bring it into Microsoft Word and resize it before printing it out when you're ready to print you can use matte or glossy photo paper either one is acceptable once you're done all you have to do is attach one photo to your passport application and pat yourself on the back for a job well done to see the complete list of requirements which you should check out visit travel.state.gov and if you live outside the US be sure to follow the guidelines for your country if you have any questions or want to show off your mug tweet me and subscribe to my Facebook page for more tips like this for cnet.com I'm Sharon Vaknin