And now it’s the background of my passport photo that’s the problem
I need to renew my passport, which has expired. That requires a photo that follows all the rules.
Rather than try to do it myself, I went to CVS, which purports to have a service that takes a person’s photo in a government-compliant way. Although the ensuing photo was far from flattering, it seemed to pass muster. And their computer said so, as well.
But alas, when I tried to renew online the government website rejected the photo. Why? The background was too dark, it said. And yet the background was white. Quite white. Was it very, very, very white? Not exactly, I suppose.
So now it’s back to square one. Where do I go now? Walgreen’s or the UPS store? The post office no longer offers this handy dandy service. Where have you had success? Or are you do-it-yourselfers?
What about the Post Office?
A couple months ago I got my passport renewed and photo taken at the UNM bookstore. I paid extra for expediting and received my brand-new passport in five days.
I used the post office, but that was about 4 years ago.
AAA has (as of several years ago, anyway) a free passport photo service for members. Of course, when I used used it, I mailed in the photo with a paper application. So I’m not sure if they still have the service; if so, whether they do it digitally (presumably they’re up to date); and whether they’d be any better than CVS.
Another idea: Save a few copies of the photo on your computer. Paste one of them into MS Word and play with the various photo touch-up features (contrast, brightness , grayscale, etc.) and resave. Maybe you’ll get one variant to work.