Printing passport photo's in tesco's question...

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supersammy

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I've been asked as an urgent favour to take some ID photo's for a friend.

So I have some questions, I've seen the machines in tesco - and I have a local 24 hour tesco's, can I print them tonight at silly o clock?

What format do I need to take the files in? I.e - jpeg vs raw, and can I leave them on the CF card or will I need to transfer them to a usb stick or something similar?

Do you know if it's instant from those machines? Or will I have to wait around for hours?

Thanks in advance.
 
The printer will need jpg, remember to follow the passport office guidelines precisely.
 
Alastair said:
The printer will need jpg, remember to follow the passport office guidelines precisely.
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It's for a work id - so is not as important. The remit is just a current passport sized photo.

Need to find out about what sort of card to put the info on, and also if I need to resize the photo's myself?

Are the machines instant? Thanks
 
Would be a blooming sight easier and quicker to go to Tescos and ask them, I would have thought?


Heather
 
I've never tried them myself, but watching people use them they seem to spend about 20 minutes.
 
Tigger.ufo said:
Would be a blooming sight easier and quicker to go to Tescos and ask them, I would have thought?


Heather
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I thought it was a photography forum, to ask photography questions?

How is my question any different to someone asking how to use a function on their camera when they could simply call Canon etc customer services?

Also - it might be a lot easier for you to drive to get an answer, but I am cooking my dinner and would rather get some information from people on the internet than spending half an hour of my time driving to ask the questions. (Especially as most of the staff will not be their due to the time, and they might not be able to answer the question).
 
supersammy said:
I thought it was a photography forum, to ask photography questions?

How is my question any different to someone asking how to use a function on their camera when they could simply call Canon etc customer services?

Also - it might be a lot easier for you to drive to get an answer, but I am cooking my dinner and would rather get some information from people on the internet than spending half an hour of my time driving to ask the questions. (Especially as most of the staff will not be their due to the time, and they might not be able to answer the question).
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Sorry, I was under the impression that this was an urgent matter and that speed was of the essence.



Heather
 
I got mine done in my local main post office. No waiting and they have a camera to produce 4 pics on one sheet and also a photo cutter to separate each photo. Advantage is photos done to passport requirements.
That includes background colour ie grey-size-head/shoulders- area around head shoulders etc etc
 
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realspeed said:
I got mine done in my local main post office. No waiting and they have a camera to produce 4 pics on one sheet and also a photo cutter to separate each photo. Advantage is photos done to passport requirements
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Seems like I will tell her just to use the machine. It's not worth the hassle of trying to sort this out.
 
supersammy said:
Seems like I will tell her just to use the machine. It's not worth the hassle of trying to sort this out.
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That's about the right outcome tbh:

In answer to your question, there'd be nothing automatic, you'd have to:

Shoot to roughly the spec (lighting is important, they don't like any modelling at all :cuckoo:)

Crop and resize the image

copy several of those to a 6x4 (I usually get 6 on)

take the 6x4 file to Tesco's and hope they don't mess with the size too much, wait for the printer (they may charge extra for faster service, they may have instant machines).

all for a 60p print:thumbs:

Compared to your friend going into a booth and getting instant photos for £4,

Worth the hassle?

You'll guess I've done it before, but I use a 6x4 dye sub so miss out the printing at the supermarket hassle and wait. still not worth the hassle though.
 
Doesn't the machine produce scary shocking wideangle images? When I saw my dad's I still can't stop laughing, since then I bettered those by pulling out a 14mm :) :lol:
I also heard of some being rejected as not good enough quality.
 
crofter said:
Took my own photo for my drivng license and printed it on my epson inkjet.
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But I only have a colour laser printer, so it's not an option for me.
 
Phil V said:
That's about the right outcome tbh:

In answer to your question, there'd be nothing automatic, you'd have to:

Shoot to roughly the spec (lighting is important, they don't like any modelling at all :cuckoo:)

Crop and resize the image

copy several of those to a 6x4 (I usually get 6 on)

take the 6x4 file to Tesco's and hope they don't mess with the size too much, wait for the printer (they may charge extra for faster service, they may have instant machines).

all for a 60p print:thumbs:

Compared to your friend going into a booth and getting instant photos for £4,

Worth the hassle?

You'll guess I've done it before, but I use a 6x4 dye sub so miss out the printing at the supermarket hassle and wait. still not worth the hassle though.
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After promising I have been sort of forced into doing this. And I can only echo phils comments - it's not worth the hassle.

I ended up taking the photo's with my 430exii flash, which I do not know if it's up to the job or not. I asked to go and get another lens, and was told that it wasn't necessary... I thought either my 50mm or my 70-200 would let more light in, and do a better job in the low light conditions, but it was rejected. The person then posed like she had been taught from working in a school sideways even though I said I did not think thats how it was meant to be done... I was also only allowed to take two photos. And then the "model" said I should have a go at photoshopping out wrinkles...

Here is the results, which I'm off to get printed. Not happy, pretty embarrassed and will not be doing this again. I've only added the photo as I think it's fair to show what takes the best part of an hour and looks awful for the sake of saving less than £3!



I'll report on what formats the printer takes and prices and times when I get back this evening, so that others will know for the future.
 
With a bit of luck, the institution that wants the photos will reject them since the poses are unsuitable and/or manipulated so they're not a true representation of the person depicted!!!
 
Nod said:
With a bit of luck, the institution that wants the photos will reject them since the poses are unsuitable and/or manipulated so they're not a true representation of the person depicted!!!
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With a bit of luck they won't! As ill end up having to do them again! The card printers at tesco are instant. 35p for a single print. Can take almost any card, including cf. I used JPEG so can't comment on if it can handle raw. Whole process took around 30 seconds.
 
supersammy said:
After promising I have been sort of forced into doing this. And I can only echo phils comments - it's not worth the hassle.

I ended up taking the photo's with my 430exii flash, which I do not know if it's up to the job or not. I asked to go and get another lens, and was told that it wasn't necessary... I thought either my 50mm or my 70-200 would let more light in, and do a better job in the low light conditions, but it was rejected. The person then posed like she had been taught from working in a school sideways even though I said I did not think thats how it was meant to be done... I was also only allowed to take two photos. And then the "model" said I should have a go at photoshopping out wrinkles...

Here is the results, which I'm off to get printed. Not happy, pretty embarrassed and will not be doing this again. I've only added the photo as I think it's fair to show what takes the best part of an hour and looks awful for the sake of saving less than £3!



I'll report on what formats the printer takes and prices and times when I get back this evening, so that others will know for the future.
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I am sorry but this is a nice joke, right?! They are blurry, and very orange let alone the posing. I though 1DX takes better photos :lol::D. Sorry

430EX is more than capable enough to shoot a decent portrait, but I believe passport photos need 2x lights at 45 degree angle and lit background.
 
daugirdas said:
I am sorry but this is a nice joke, right?! They are blurry, and very orange let alone the posing. I though 1DX takes better photos :lol::D. Sorry

430EX is more than capable enough to shoot a decent portrait, but I believe passport photos need 2x lights at 45 degree angle and lit background.
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They are not for a passport. They just have to be passport sized and look like the person.

In fairness, they wernt actually blurry when taken, although some of the hair was out of focus, so I should have used a higher aperture. I also forgot to change the white balance for flash so it's skewed the colours a bit.

Now I've got them printed they don't look too bad. Maybe not up to your standards and I could have done better, but overall it's ok.

Also I'm not sure what my camera has to do with anything. The photos are down to me and not the camera.
 
Even for a work ID card both of these poses would get rejected by some companies, and neither of them are flattering. You're doing this as a favour and she only sat for two poses? - I don't think anyone would be doing that favour again.

How do you mean not blurry when taken? - does this mean it's something deliberate in how you've processed them?

My guess is that they are blurry in the original, and it's probably due to the shutter speed. The background appears too well lit for spill from the flash and therefore I assume that you're shutter speed is slow enough to expose for ambient with just a smidge of fill from the flash.
 
OP heading " Printing passport photo's in tesco's question..."



supersammy said:
After promising I have been sort of forced into doing this. And I can only echo phils comments - it's not worth the hassle.

I ended up taking the photo's with my 430exii flash, which I do not know if it's up to the job or not. I asked to go and get another lens, and was told that it wasn't necessary... I thought either my 50mm or my 70-200 would let more light in, and do a better job in the low light conditions, but it was rejected. The person then posed like she had been taught from working in a school sideways even though I said I did not think thats how it was meant to be done... I was also only allowed to take two photos. And then the "model" said I should have a go at photoshopping out wrinkles...

Here is the results, which I'm off to get printed. Not happy, pretty embarrassed and will not be doing this again. I've only added the photo as I think it's fair to show what takes the best part of an hour and looks awful for the sake of saving less than £3!



I'll report on what formats the printer takes and prices and times when I get back this evening, so that others will know for the future.
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Completely wrong, obviously you have not read the requirements for passport photos.

Check out this official link for requirements. Your efforts are a complete waste of time

https://www.gov.uk/photos-for-passports
 
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realspeed said:
Completely wrong, obviously you have not read the requirements for passport photos.

Check out this official link for requirements. Your efforts are a complete waste of time

https://www.gov.uk/photos-for-passports
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Realspeed, sorry but it's you that's not read the thread. The OP has confused everyone with the title, but has very clearly said they're work ID photos and not for passports.

Still wasted his time, though..
 
Printing passport photo's in tesco's question.
So thats what I have replied to

If its for employment then most companies do the photographs in house anyway so the get what they want
 
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realspeed said:
Printing passport photo's in tesco's question.
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Caught me out as well, but it was clarified by the OP in the third post.

And when I say he was wasting he his time, that's due not so much to the poor result but the poor attitude from the sitter. Only two shots, and then told that's enough - when chimping should have spotted the very poor posing by the sitter, as well as the exposure issues.
 
Maybe the OP should really consider again about taking on any commercial work paid or unpaid even for friends or relations. Others have already commented on what is wrong with them so no need for me to repeat.

Having taken photograpghs for too many years to remember (Started out with a Brownie 127, cost £1-0-11pennies old money) I still don't consider my photos are good enough to do commercial work even though I have been asked many times
 
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realspeed said:
Maybe the OP should really consider again about taking on any commercial work paid or unpaid even for friends or relations. Others have already commented on what is wrong with them so no need for me to repeat.

Having taken photograpghs for too many years to remember (Started out with a Brownie 127, cost £1-0-11pennies old money) I still don't consider my photos are good enough to do commercial work even though I have been asked many times
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I have never and would never take on any paid or commercial work. I earn more than enough doing something which I am good at, than to try and use a camera to earn a living! However if a close friend or family member asks me to do them a favour I automatically say yes. I know some on here are very precious about their gear, however at the weekend a friend wanted to borrow my camera to go to a wedding so I let him have it. He'd never used a dslr before so I gave him the manual it came with. It's just how I am. He was happy, and no harm was done.

As an aside. The photo's have been accepted by the company in question - so it's all over for me. I would not agree to help out with these sorts of photo's again, as I'd rather drive someone to a machine and pay the £4 than go through that hassle.

I appreciate the feedback members have given, and will use it in the future to try and take better photo's. It was my first real time using flash, and I cocked it up. I also failed to notice that the IS button on my lens was off, so it may be why members feel the shots are very blurry. However I still say that the original raw files were quite sharp even when zoomed well in.
 
Sammy, what was your shutter speed? - I'm almost certain it wasn't 1/250th, which is what it should have been.
 
Alastair said:
Sammy, what was your shutter speed? - I'm almost certain it wasn't 1/250th, which is what it should have been.
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Just checked the metadata... And for some bizarre reason it was 0.5s!!! With a flash.. F4.0 and iso 400. Seems very strange to me.
 
That's your problem Sammy. You cocked up the settings.

You can't call it strange, the settings are yours to control. There is going to be an assumption that someone with a top spec camera will understand what they're doing - which is probably one reason for a lack of sympathy from those that have responded (that and the misleading thread title).
 
Alastair said:
That's your problem Sammy. You cocked up the settings.

You can't call it strange, the settings are yours to control. There is going to be an assumption that someone with a top spec camera will understand what they're doing - which is probably one reason for a lack of sympathy from those that have responded (that and the misleading thread title).
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I don't mind. I'd rather people be a bit sharp and I learn a thing or two, than people treat me with kid gloves and I keep making the same silly mistakes. I wrongly assumed that the camera would sort that as I had it in aperture priority. I suppose I should have bounced up the iso, and lowered the shutter speed.

Anyway - thanks for the advice.
 
Ahh... if the 1Dx is at all like the 40D in the menu options, there's a custom function that sets the shutter speed to the synch speed by default whenever a flash is attached to the hot shoe and the camera is in Av mode. Worth having a look through the menus to see if you have the same.
 
supersammy said:
I wrongly assumed that the camera would sort that as I had it in aperture priority. I suppose I should have bounced up the iso, and lowered the shutter speed.
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With Canon DSLRs, in Av mode it exposes for the ambient light and treats the flash as fill-in. So if the ambient light is low, you'll get a long shutter speed. Obviously that's good if you really want to use the flash as fill-in. It's also handy for taking portraits at night when there is some interest in the background such as a floodlit tourist attraction. But for normal indoor portraits... less useful.
 
Removed due to duplicate post.
 
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StewartR said:
With Canon DSLRs, in Av mode it exposes for the ambient light and treats the flash as fill-in. So if the ambient light is low, you'll get a long shutter speed. Obviously that's good if you really want to use the flash as fill-in. It's also handy for taking portraits at night when there is some interest in the background such as a floodlit tourist attraction. But for normal indoor portraits... less useful.
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How would you go about stopping it doing that without using full manual mode? Obviously I could use shutter priority, but if I want to control the aperture as my primary thing? I'm assuming you just have to use full manual.
 
supersammy said:
How would you go about stopping it doing that without using full manual mode? Obviously I could use shutter priority, but if I want to control the aperture as my primary thing? I'm assuming you just have to use full manual.
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When flash is my primary light source I always use Manual, but as others have said you can set a CF to make the flash sync speed the default when using a flash.

My method for ETTL flash is; evaluate 'correct' exposure for the ambient.

Decide how much of the ambient to capture (in your case none) and set that exposure.

Ascertain whether FEC will be required, test shot, check exposure, adjust to taste and shoot.

In your case 100 ISO, F4, 1/250 SS (you don't want any exposure from the ambient in the way.

For any that read this and might want a go at actual passport photo's the pattern you need is clamshell lighting. You might get away with a bounced flash and reflector under the chin (if you're lucky).
 
Aperture Priority will expose for the ambient light and the flash will fill in, hence the low shutter speed. Likewise with shutter priority which will adjust the aperture for the ambient light.

For indoor shots like the ones you have taken, I would either use the Program function to use flash for the whole exposure or manual. I feel manual is better and would probably have bounced the flash with a shutter speed of maybe 1/125 at ISO 100-400 and whatever aperture you wanted, and the flash would compensate to correctly light the scene.

Edit: I replied to the post at the bottom of the first page, but I now see I have been beaten to it! Doh! Must read towards the end of the thread before repyling ...
 
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