Existing users, 
Passport Photo Studio
Create and print passport photos from home.
Version: 1.5.1
A good start, but does not work miracles
Feedback Type: Review
Contributed by: sng40 Friday, December 19 2008 @ 10:48 AM PST
Product Platform: MacOSX
Used Product For: Less than a month
Recommend Product: NO
Basically, this app superimposes head and shoulders contour lines over a photo that you already have saved somewhere,and it gives you minimal capability to shrink or enlarge the photo and to move the acceptance frame over the image to center the face properly. It does not provide for taking pictures from your web cam, and it does not remove busy background that is not permitted in a passport photo. So, its main advantage appears to be in sizing an existing photo for passport use, something that you could do yourself with a graphics app like GraphicConverter. I tried printing a passport photo, and was disappointed on several accounts: (1) the image was of poor quality, somewhat blurred; there were but two images per printed page, whereas some applications would permit one to print twenty 2"x2" passport photos on a page (waste of expensive photoprint paper), and (3) unless you buy the app, you get DEMO printed right across the face in big red letters. So, rather than spend almost $9 on this program, I would probably put the money toward Photoshop Elements which supports multiple image printing, for example.
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Developer Response - grogware
Since sng40's review is mostly negative I would like to respond to the points he made:1) Can't use webcam - I did experiment with webcam support but the quality was generally poor and it is recommended that pictures be taken from a slightly greater distance than a webcam provide
2) Can't remove busy background - This is not the intention of this application as passport authorities don't accept retouched photos. As with item number 1 this feature would likely result in having a photo rejected.
3) Could do yourself in Photoshop or Graphic Converter - This is undoubtably true. However not everyone has these tools or the skills to use them. Even if you have these tools it is surprisingly difficult and time consuming to find the information and size a photo appropriately. This is the reason I wrote the application.
4) Blurry image - I have sold many copies of this application and this is the first I have heard of this complaint. Perhaps sng40 used a webcam image for his testing which although looks reasonable on screen is not of a sufficient quality for printing. Either way, I'd appreciate it if he contacted me so I can figure out why he has different results than the many happy customers who have purchased.
5) Only 2 images printed - Most users will be printing on a 4" x 6" photo printer and there is only room for 2 images. On larger paper sizes there is a trade off between possibly wasting expensive paper and very expensive ink, as most people only need 2 photos I decided to save ink. In the future I may add the ability to print more images on one page but currently less than 1 percent of paying customers have made this request.
6) Demo version has watermark - yes, it is a demo version
For people who want to quickly and accurately create a passport photo at home only 1 of the 6 concerns sng40 bought up seems relevant. I have not had a single other complaint about item 4 but since he had a problem I would appreciate it if sng40 would contact me so I may look into it.
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Saturday, December 20 2008 @ 10:59 AM PST