We just obtained photo prints for our two IDPs (or by mail passport applications) for 14 cents. Your local AAA office will do it for $16-$20. per non-member when you get your IDP, but they'll also use a photo you provide.
For the DYI method. Take digital passport photos per State Dept. requirements. Explained here: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/how-apply/photos.html
Use a photo editing program to arrange six square photos without borders in a 3 x 2 grid and save as one .jpg file.
I used a photo program called IrfanView on Windows ( https://www.irfanview.com/ ), but there are other photo editors that can do it - look for a feature called 'Create Tiled image' or Collage image or combine images.
Go to Walmart.com, selecting your store and order 4x6 prints either matte or glossy after uploading your image. Pick-up the prints in person between 1 hr. and 7 days ( they will also ship them out for around $6.00 extra). Our prints were .14 cents each - we got lots for future IDP years and in case of other ID needs.
Posted by
Normandie
487 posts
Hmm...
I took my wife's last passport photo with my iPhone against a white wall at our rental house in Bourgogne and printed it out on my office printer to the scale required for passports. Shipped it to Paris with her renewal form and she still values the photo each time she opens her passport. It was pretty good by my standards, and I'm not exactly a great photographer.
In other words, I'm not sure one would need an app or Walmart. Especially not Walmart.
Posted by
OP
Boston
1856 posts
Having banged my head against more than one expensive color printer due to clogged ink dispensers or extortive manufacturers, I consider Walmart a comparative joy.
Posted by
Twin Cities of MN
7203 posts
I've done my own passport and IDP photos for quite a while, now. It sometimes has taken me a while to get them right, so I appreciate these tips. For anyone that belongs to AAA, the IDP and passport photos are done at no charge
Posted by
West Michigan
391 posts
Excellent advice, Mike. I do the same thing with a similar program called XnView. And I agree, that with color inkjet printers being such a headache, I'm happy to pay Walmart a tiny amount of $ to do my printing. I make I.D. card photos for an organization I belong to, and they require a red background. So I just take photos with a white or neutral background, and just graphically fill in the background with whatever this year's requirements ask for.
Posted by
Denver, CO USA
617 posts
14¢ for a passport photo.
Good for 10 years.
10 years of travel for $100-200K.
I think there are better uses of one’s time.
Posted by
Twin Cities of MN
7203 posts
@Dave, Where are passport photos 14 cents or the $1 you initially stated?
Posted by
Arctophilia, Northamptonshire, England
35248 posts
I think there are better uses of one’s time.
than you don't have to do it.
Posted by
Chicago
9103 posts
I have always done our passport photos. I take them on the Iphone, then transfer them to my computer and edit and size them and then send them to Walgreens to print for very little money. Works fine.
Posted by
San Diego
96 posts
Its free now, just take a picture with your phone. We did that for both our online passport submissions recently. Heck, the passport phone folks don't have a clue now that you can do them online. Most cannot even get you the required digital picture. And our cheap scanners are to poor a resolution to scan the physical photos in either.
Posted by
Chicago
947 posts
As noted, if you are renewing a passport, you can do it online, and only need to
submit a digital picture, not a hard copy. The State Dept website lists the criteria
required for the picture to be accepted (for one, no selfies are allowed).
Posted by
Western Canada
3825 posts
For Canadian passports, photos must be taken by a commercial photographer and date stamped with that photographer‘s business name on the back.
Around CAN $20 +tax for two photos.
There’s an app that will link to a local drugstore chain so you can take your own photos and they authenticate them, but the app says it complies with “Colombian authorities “, so I’m not sure that’s too trustworthy!
Posted by
208 posts
Well, there’s good news. One doesn’t need to go to the AAA office any longer and it all can be done online. Nothing to mail either. There’s an extra cost, but for people like me, who don’t have an AAA branch anywhere close to them, it’s a lifesaver. To be clear, to get to my local office I need to take a ferry and then a taxi which can be as high a total as $200. I was happy to pay $42 total.
Posted by
1 posts
Yeah we usually take our own photos for passports and visas as well. For the US one, we just use the official tool on their website to make sure the crop is correct. For visas, there are a number of free tools online (i.e. many will come up if you Google for, passportphotosprint, visaphoto requirements for x, idphotos printing...etc) that can help to crop and generate a printable 4x6 version, but be careful to check the requirements yourself since we've noticed that some of them are conflicting or not up to date. The sizes can also be different based on where you apply from, such as US or Europe.
Posted by
Central Coast CA, USA
293 posts
I use epassportphoto.com to resize the photos according to requirements. Different countries have different requirements, and that site has been good at getting the details right. It used to be free, but now they have a charge, I believe. And I take the digital image from them and get it printed at our local CVS.