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Need Help with photo for DV2010

L

LivingWater

Registered Users (C)
Hello everybody :) I want to wish best of luck for everyone in DV2010 !

I have some questions for the photo requirements.This will be my first entry to the lottery :)

Can i ask for help on the following :

Is this shadow on the right side of the face/neck OK ?

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/9167/mehelpqg3.jpg

Is the background color ok ?
Is the Composition ok ? I litterally placed the Guide drawing over my original photo and Crop it using the guide ?
Is it ok that the image displays that it is 8bit/Channels in Photoshop (Image -> mode menue), as in the requirements it says it must be 24bit ?

Why is 24 bit not available in photoshop ?

Also is it OK to change the Color Balance in Photoshop or the Levels ?

Almost forgot. Should the file be .jpg or .jpeg ?

Please help !!! :)
 
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LivingWater said:
Is this shadow on the right side of the face/neck OK ?
Click to expand...

Looks fine to me ...

LivingWater said:
Is the background color ok ?
Click to expand...

Yes.

LivingWater said:
Is the Composition ok ? I litterally placed the Guide drawing over my original photo and Crop it using the guide ?
Click to expand...

What guide drawing ??? The head in your picture is way too small. It has to cover about 50% of the area of the photograph, in your case it's probably only 10-15%.

LivingWater said:
Should the file be .jpg or .jpeg ?
Click to expand...

I'd leave it as jpg but that part is not really relevant anyway since the file name may not even be retained during the upgrade.
 
Thank you for the reply TheAtheist

The guide i used was this picture
http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/7549/phototemplatepu3.gif

I made this picture transperent in photoshop and plased it on a new layer above my original photo, ajusted the size of that guide to match my eyes position, mouth position, and the size of the head.They fit pritty well from the top marker to the low end one.Do i have to ignore that guide picture and try to make the head at 50% ?

Btw when i make the head at 50% theres little to be sean from the shoulders ?
 
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Thank you so much raevsky :)
Finally some well defined information.

It seams I'll be doing a new photo :/ i noticed that even my tiny nose drops a shadow too :(
And this is taken in a Kodak studio, what a shame.
I'm having great fun with this, i whent trough 3 photo studios today.One of them did a retouch after which i didn't recognize myself, on the other one the "white" background turned Blue on the photo :/ and in the Kodak studio shadows ...

Btw did i get this right ? They want a perfect light setup, perfect focus, perfect colors, perfect everything ? And no additional editing in Photoshop like Levels, Color balance ajustments ? .... crazy stuff ...
 
LivingWater said:
Finally some well defined information.
Click to expand...

Yeah, very well defined ... The only problem is that those are specifications for US travel documents (including passports), not for the DV lottery.

The page at http://travel.state.gov/visa/guide/guide_3877.html (Guidelines for Producing High Quality Photographs for U.S. Travel Documents - for Visa Online Applications) contains almost the same specifications along with a note saying that the requirements do not apply to the DV lottery program.

The DV specs clearly state that the head should cover about 50% of the area of the photograph and none of the pictures on those sites satisfy this requirement. It's up to you if you want to submit a picture where the head is about one fourth of the required size.

There are also a few sample photos at http://www.greencardgratis.de/steuerung.php?seite=photos&sprache=d with somewhat larger head sizes. (The page is only available in German, but the images there speak for themselves.)
 
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The specifications http://www.greencardgratis.de/steuerung.php?seite=photos&sprache=d are not official for DV lottery and should be avoided, while specifications http://travel.state.gov/passport/guide/guide_2081.html are official specifications for DV lottery. Even though they do not say so, tomorrow you will see a link to that website from photovalidator. Last year photovalidator had a link to this website. BTW, the site http://travel.state.gov/passport/guide/guide_2081.html does not say it is not for DV lottery.
The DV specs clearly state that the head should cover about 50% of the area of the photograph and none of the pictures on those sites satisfy this requirement
Click to expand...
And, of course, http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/info/info_1287.html states the same thing
The applicant should not look down or to either side, and the face should cover about 50 percent of the photo area
Click to expand...
even though the sample images that follow on the link http://travel.state.gov/passport/guide/guide_2081.html (visible from http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/info/info_1287.html) contradict it.

The same as http://travel.state.gov/passport/guide/faq/faq_881.html

How big should the head be in the photo?
The customer''s head, measured from the bottom of the chin to the top of the hair, should be between 1 inch and 1-3/8 inches. The head should be centered in the photo. The head of the person being photographed should not be tilted up, down or to the side. It should cover about 50% of the area of the photo.
Click to expand...

At the same time http://travel.state.gov/passport/guide/glossary/glossary_882.html shows

Centering - the orientation of the facial region within the frame; head should be positioned such that the approximate horizontal mid-points of the mouth and bridge of nose lie on a vertical line at the horizontal center of the photo width; and a horizontal line through the center of the subject's eyes can be located approximately 55% from the vertical bottom of the photo; and the width of the subject's head is approximately 50% of the width of the photo.
Click to expand...

It is absolutely impossible mathematically to have head area 50% of the total picture, and at the same time the width of the head 50% of the width of the picture. That would mean the height of the head equals to the height of the picture. That is complete absurd. However, all those pages quoted are linked to each other, they have the same root and they state they all are the same.

Regarding this particular controvercy it is more or less clear the images are right, but the statement about 50% area is incorrect. That is exactly one of the reasons why the specifications on the site http://www.greencardgratis.de/steuerung.php?seite=photos&sprache=d should be avoided. Probably, the authors of the specifications on travel.state.gov had very vague idea of what area is. Very frequently americans are clueless in math. I remember those specifications were created based on the 50% area statement several years ago when passport guide was not linked to DV lottery rules, and when it did not have those absulr discrepancies. Now it is clear it has been wrong from the date it was created. On the other hand, it worked. People were not disqualified using both approaches. Nevertheless, I would choose to follow the image samples. Because all problema are resolved if we remove only one incorrect statement.
 
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Digital Pic

LivingWater said:
Is it ok that the image displays that it is 8bit/Channels in Photoshop (Image -> mode menue), as in the requirements it says it must be 24bit ?

Why is 24 bit not available in photoshop ?

Also is it OK to change the Color Balance in Photoshop or the Levels ?

Almost forgot. Should the file be .jpg or .jpeg ?

Please help !!! :)
Click to expand...

THESE ARE YOUR ANSWERS:

1. Your Photo looks fine "BUILD ist OK".
2. We are not living in a perfect world hence, you will never ever get a perfect photo from a digital camera without adjustment. By The GOD CREATED human eye, being the remarkable piece of engineering, only you can get a perfect photo without adjustment.
3. In a digital image there is three primary colors Channels: red, green, and blue. Photoshop can display 8bits/channel or multiples (i.e. 16, 32). The three channels together constiute the image "bit depth".
4. Your Photo has 8 bit/channel and has 3 channels depth that make your Photo a 24 bit depth Photo, which is OK.
5.JPG or JPEG are the same.
6. SAVE YOUR PHOTO AND SAVE YOUR TIME AND MONEY.

THANKS,
 
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Thanks for the assurance DV1.

However I Successfully found a Photo Studio where they had a proffesional Light setup, and a white background, Thank you Lord ! :D i even didn't have to do any ajustments in Photoshop regarding Levels and Colors.

This is the new Photo.
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/4360/meforvisaexampleuv9.jpg

As you can see the background is Light, there are no shadows on the face, colors are great as far as i'm concerned.

But it would be best if we can get some Lottery winners to share how did their photos look like in terms of head size :)
 
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DV 2010 photo : ? 600*600 !

Pls DV1 and all out there, help resolve this problem..:confused:
How do I resize my digital photo or a scanned one to make the new 600*600 pixels , I've tried many times to no avail..I used a digital cam , setting at VGA and on my computer I use micrsoft office pctue manager which I used last year successfully when it was 240*320 pixels. Now allI get after customizing the size(reszing in edit pic) to 600*600 is a return to 450*600 pixes.... dnt know if this will be acceptable ,if not please, how do I go about getting 600*600 ? please help:confused::confused::confused:
 
Hi there drcamilaw :)
I have no experience with Microsoft Picture Manager, but what i can say is that because your original photo is 240*320 and you are trying to "Resize" it, i guess the software is trying to keep the original Pixel Aspect Ratio of the picture so you will not get stretching of the image.Because the image is Not a Sqare, if the program resizes the image to 600x600 You Will Stretch your photo, and thats a No Go.

The way to do it is to "Crop" the picture using a "Square" selection which will make the original image in a Square size, which then you can resize to 600x600.
Keep in mind that doing that you may change the composition of the photo, and also if the original photo is in Low quality, you will lose Quality when you resize the samll image to a 600x600 image, and that can produce an unusable picture.

The best thing you can do is go and take a new photo.
 
Make a picture with a higher resolution e.g. 1600 x 1200 pixel, cut out the area you need and bring it to 600*600 pixel
 
Tazmania i found these examples of photos in 240x320

http://www.mezun.com/greencard/images/240x320_ornek.jpg

And another example which is 300x300

http://www.mezun.com/greencard/images/300x300_ornek.jpg

In these examples it is clear that the head is much larger then the photos in the official USA guide.
The original site is this http://greencardonline.blogspot.com/ i guess in Turkish which i don't understand.

Do you remamber if your photo was more like this
http://www.mezun.com/greencard/images/240x320_ornek.jpg
Where there's little to be seen from the shoulders and the head is big.

Or more like this
http://travel.state.gov/visa/guide/guide_3886.html
Where the shoulders are more visible and the head is smaller ?
 
Thanks a lot with dcropping idea!

LivingWater said:
Hi there drcamilaw :)
I have no experience with Microsoft Picture Manager, but what i can say is that because your original photo is 240*320 and you are trying to "Resize" it, i guess the software is trying to keep the original Pixel Aspect Ratio of the picture so you will not get stretching of the image.Because the image is Not a Sqare, if the program resizes the image to 600x600 You Will Stretch your photo, and thats a No Go.

The way to do it is to "Crop" the picture using a "Square" selection which will make the original image in a Square size, which then you can resize to 600x600.
Keep in mind that doing that you may change the composition of the photo, and also if the original photo is in Low quality, you will lose Quality when you resize the samll image to a 600x600 image, and that can produce an unusable picture.

The best thing you can do is go and take a new photo.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot meeen! The cropping idea did it!..Nothing seemed changed but will revise well:p..Thanks a lot..best luck!
 
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