Question about Photo and Random Question about Actors

[Upgraded]

4 Questions.
Entered the DV lotto last year, Didn't win.
Planning to Enter this year, But I have a question about my Photo.

Here is my Photo, I have blurred my face for obivous reasons , But I am making a Neutral face, no reflections or shadows or anything like that.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/Zaull/Visa.jpg

The Photo Validator said it was Fine Last year, However this photo was home taken. Not Modified in any way except for Cut out and re-sized so that it's in the rules.

My Questions

1) Is there anything wrong with the photo that might of gotten me disqualified? There's no photo re-touching or editing, just a cut out and re-size.
Yes I'm aware I have about a Cm of shadow under my ears and behind my neck, but that's impossible to get rid of without photo retouching or having NO light at all.

http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/Images/help_good_3.jpg
There is the Photo I referenced from.
I did notice my Head is looking up a bit in my photo and my Hair almost reaches the top of the photo.


2) Can I use this photo again this year? My looks havn't changed and to be honest niether has my hair.


3) If I do get a Passport photo taken by a Post Office or something how do I get it onto my computer? I'd have to use a scanner or something, meaning I'd have to then ' re-touch ' it in photoshop to re-size ect, What do I do?


4) ( Different Question ) As a fellow Actor I keep reading up on Wikis of Actors who aren't American moving there.

Constantly I'm reading ' So and So moved to the US to persue acting '
exactly how are they MOVING to the US to persue acting?
Sounds to me like they are going illegally, marrying or getting some kind of ' help ' from another source.

Thanks Guys

 

[stuart]

4 Questions.
Entered the DV lotto last year, Didn't win.
Planning to Enter this year, But I have a question about my Photo.

Here is my Photo, I have blurred my face for obivous reasons , But I am making a Neutral face, no reflections or shadows or anything like that.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/Zaull/Visa.jpg

The Photo Validator said it was Fine Last year, However this photo was home taken. Not Modified in any way except for Cut out and re-sized so that it's in the rules.

My Questions

1) Is there anything wrong with the photo that might of gotten me disqualified? There's no photo re-touching or editing, just a cut out and re-size.
Yes I'm aware I have about a Cm of shadow under my ears and behind my neck, but that's impossible to get rid of without photo retouching or having NO light at all.

http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/Images/help_good_3.jpg
There is the Photo I referenced from.
I did notice my Head is looking up a bit in my photo and my Hair almost reaches the top of the photo.


2) Can I use this photo again this year? My looks havn't changed and to be honest niether has my hair.


3) If I do get a Passport photo taken by a Post Office or something how do I get it onto my computer? I'd have to use a scanner or something, meaning I'd have to then ' re-touch ' it in photoshop to re-size ect, What do I do?

Thanks Guys

The photo is fine. If you are too worried about the shadows underneath your ears then you could air brush it to be background color in zoom mode so you can look at each pixel to avoid cutting your ears. Yes i know they say not to retouch it. I had edited my shadows and adjusted sharpness/brightness
to have a bright background and won. That sort of tiny editing is not detectable especially if you dont do it on your face. But you are fine trust me picture quality wise.

You may however wanna make your face cover slightly more of the area by cropping the bottom of your chest. They only require up till shoulder level.

Heres what you can do if you are going the Scanning route of a 2inch passport photo. BTW you are resizing and not retouching when scanning pic and editing.

After scanning the image using the scanner obviously and opening it in Adobe Photoshop:

Click on the View menu and click on "Actual Pixels" option.
This will make you image really large (actual size)

Next click on the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" which is the little rectangle icon on the toolbar. Next at the top below the menu bar enter Width and Height to be 300px. The style should be set to "Constrained Aspect Ratio"

Now select the image area manually with your mouse using the marquee tool. This area will be part of actual photo.

Dont worry on being super accurate - as long as you can see the head shoulders coming into the reactangle and get the approx 50% head in pic rule, you are sweet. The advantage of doing this way is that you exactly get the feel of what is the right image coverage area

Once you have done selecting, CLick on "image" menu and click on "crop"
This is your image area. Next click on "Image" menu and click on "Image Size". In this enter 300 for W and H. The boxes below should be ticked by default. Leave it as it is. It also shows the resolution here which depending on your scanner settings might be 200 pixels/inch and this is fine. Click ok and save image.

You are done! Its really easy

If you have taken a digital pic, its no diff, except you enter diff pixel sizes as required by the specs.

And yeah just get a new pic taken rather then using the old one. If you have digital camera and white background you will be done in lesss then 5 minutes from taking pic to getting it edited to be finished pic as per specs

TIP: when taking digital pic - have light sources hit subject face at an angle preferably from sides then from straight in front of subject. This reduces that shadow falling on the background.

 

[Johnkent]

4 Questions.
Entered the DV lotto last year, Didn't win.
Planning to Enter this year, But I have a question about my Photo.

Here is my Photo, I have blurred my face for obivous reasons , But I am making a Neutral face, no reflections or shadows or anything like that.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/Zaull/Visa.jpg

The Photo Validator said it was Fine Last year, However this photo was home taken. Not Modified in any way except for Cut out and re-sized so that it's in the rules.

My Questions

1) Is there anything wrong with the photo that might of gotten me disqualified? There's no photo re-touching or editing, just a cut out and re-size.
Yes I'm aware I have about a Cm of shadow under my ears and behind my neck, but that's impossible to get rid of without photo retouching or having NO light at all.

http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/Images/help_good_3.jpg
There is the Photo I referenced from.
I did notice my Head is looking up a bit in my photo and my Hair almost reaches the top of the photo.


2) Can I use this photo again this year? My looks havn't changed and to be honest niether has my hair.


3) If I do get a Passport photo taken by a Post Office or something how do I get it onto my computer? I'd have to use a scanner or something, meaning I'd have to then ' re-touch ' it in photoshop to re-size ect, What do I do?


4) ( Different Question ) As a fellow Actor I keep reading up on Wikis of Actors who aren't American moving there.

Constantly I'm reading ' So and So moved to the US to persue acting '
exactly how are they MOVING to the US to persue acting?
Sounds to me like they are going illegally, marrying or getting some kind of ' help ' from another source.

Thanks Guys

There might be a special kind of visa for well know actors who have pretty good amount of cash in their bank accounts