Passport size photo

When I had to apply for my passport last year, I found myself in a situation where I did not want to have a photo which I'll regret for next 10 years. I had done it once and that was enough.

In the year 1996 when I applied for my first passport, I went to a place called 'click point' (i think) in Jhansi Rani Square. The photographer there had a multi lens camera. It had 4 small lenses instead of one, so when he took the picture, the negative actually got 4 images. I could print the negative in 4 x 6 size and the passport size photo was ready. The cost of 4 passport size photos was brought down from Rs. 10 to Rs. 4 by this simple technic, and the passport size photo was in colour too.

Fast forward to 2005, 9 years have passed, we all live in the digital era and the digital cameras are the preferred ones for everybody. I needed to get a new passport, the UKPA has very strict regulations, as explained in the guidelines document, about the passport size photo. I did not want my application to get rejected for the photo, I wanted a good photo and not the one I'll regret for 10 years. Armed with my limited knowledge of photography and a desire to create a photo, which was good, cheap and acceptable to UKPA, I embarked on my journey. I succeeded in creating the passport size photo. I am outlining the process I followed here.

The concept
The concept is pretty simple, I know that I can print a digital image at various locations. I know I can print it in 4x6 (inches) size. All I need to do is adjust my picture(e) within this big image such that when the big image is printed, I get multiple small pictures which are passport size pictures, something like the following image. Please note that the image is not to scale, this is a concept not an implementation.


The tools of trade
The tools needed are as follows
1) You
2) Digital Camera
3) Personal Computer with
4) Image processing software (Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop however, believe me, for the purpose, even paintbrush is sufficient.)
5) Time

Info from experience : When I created a 4 x 6 image, the resolution was not that good for my inaitial photo, so I decided to create everything of double size and then print this big image as 4 x 6 photo at the professional photo printing machine, so the image I created was double the size that was needed (scale factor 2)

The process
Step 1) Stand against a white / light background in a well lit area and take a picture. Alternatively if you have your printed photo, then take a picture of this photo so that it is vaguely like the photos required for passports.

Step 2) Open the picture in paint sho pro (I had a 30 day trial version) and crop the picture around your face so that it matches the proportion (not size) of the required photo. What I mean here is, the required ratio of FACE AREA : PHOTO AREA should remain constant. e.g. UKPA says that for 45 x 35 photo, face should be between 29 and 34 mm of the 45 mm. (For the face they can't specify restrictions on both dimensions because not everybody will have a face fitting those constraints) lets say our face will be 30 mm of 45 (66% or 2/3rd of the photo). I cropped a slightly bigger area and then removed a line each from top and bottom, measunring the proportion everytime. Once this is done, the width is automatically fixed (it should be in the 45 x 35 proportion) so once the height is fixed (lets say at 450 pixels, the width should be 350 pixels so crop the photo with required width there.

Step 3) Now you have a photo which is of the correct proportion but it may be bigger or smaller. The size I wanted was 90 X 70 mm (remember scaling factor of 2) so I measured the height of the photo, found out how small (or big) I wanted to make it so that it becomes 90 mm in height. Once I found this, I changed the size of the photo keeping the aspect ratio same.

Step 4) Create a new blank image in PSP, remember to keep the DPI same as the one used for original picture in the earlier step. This image will serve as our main image that we will take to the shop for printing. Since the image needed for printing is 8 x 12 inches in dimension (scale factor of 2 so twice the actual print), I created this image of size 8 x 12 inches.

Step 5) Copy the image created in step 2 and paste it (as new selection) in the image created in step 4 and position it in the canvas, do it multiple times to fill the entire image.

Step 6) Take this image to the photo processing lab and print it, then cut the individual photos and your passport size photos are ready.

I printed it at boots, which is a self service instant printing machine. It costed 49p which is one of the most expensive ones. I fitted 6 photos in my image, if I had rotated individual pictures, 8 might fit. Though 49p for 6 photos is lot cheaper than what the photo booths offer and most important thing, I like the photo on my passport.

The final image (after removing my face because of copyright issues :)) looks something like this

Cool Auto Rickshaw - Part 2

Have you ever seen a completely wooden autorickshaw. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this wooden autorickshaw. It looks like it has been used by the flintstones.

Here it is, have a look yourself.



Recently I attended an off-roading event where I saw this autorickshaw on disply. I was truly amazed by strength of this rickshaw. See how it compares to the JEEP and RAV4

How to lose a friend?

There could be numerous ways to lose your friend. Some of those ways may be better than other ways. Some ways might be easier than others. Some ways might be more deceptive than others however recently I came across another way which is tried and tested, has been proven successful since almost half a century, and as a biproduct you may also earn some money. This sure shot way is AMWAY

AMWAY is a company which was apparently established around 50 years back according to the information I found on wikipedia. Recently I got the privilege of attending a short presentation from one of the Amway representative. Its called Amivo in the UK. Before attending the presentation, I did bit of a search on the internet and to my surprise (??) the presentation had precisely the same content.

This is how the business is carried out and also what I understood from it. The very first thing is, you sign up to be an IBO (Independent Business Owner) You then buy certain products directly from Amivo for your consumption. The first lot costs about £200 and you get products worth £200. (If its such a simple maths, why do I need to be an IBO to buy directly from Amivo?) Then you bring more people and when they sign up, you get a percentage of their consumption. Then those people sign up a few more and you get percentage of their spending and so on and so forth.

They claim that its not a pyramid scheme because a person who is at the bottom in the chain may earn more than the person who is on top of him, (and I tend to think it's pyramid scheme because your earnings are directly proportional to the number of people under you.)

The downside of this process is, every Amway IBO tries to get people under him, who will your first contact be? obviously your friends. If you are not interested in pyramid schemes or can see through them, you won't sign up, your friend, who only talks AMWAY now will try and get you to become a member, so you start avoiding him, may not answer his phone calls and pretty soon YOU (and him as well) WILL LOSE A FRIEND.

If you are on the other side, and you really 'get excited' by this 'business opportunity' presented to you by the sponsor (aka your upline) you become an IBO (aka downline) and this is also a scenario where you have knowingly destroyed your friendship to embark on the new relationship of 'upline - downline' where you will automatically start thinking of getting more people into your business.

This post is based on my understanding of Amway, if you do not agree to my view, it may be possible that the presentation I attended was not good enough to convince me of the potential, however if you do agree with me, god bless your friends!!

So dark the con of google?

I hope Not!!

I completed the 24 puzzles in the Da Vinci quest on google. I remember that when I started the quest, it asked me my country.

FunkiBluDawg found out here that it was not THE quest but it was the first phase of the quest, Also if you look at this blog, you will notice that there is phase 2 going on.

I am now thinking that the second phase is only open to candidates in the US? As there are clearly separate rules of the quest for UK, ROI, Channel Islands and Isle of Man. These rules can be found here. The rule 9 clearly says that there is no phase 2. I guess for the people on this side of the Atlantic, this is it, whereas for the people on other side of the atlantic, the phase 2 is still on. Is there anybody in the UK / ROI / CI / IoM who have recd. the cryptex? I guess not, so the tv stand that I bought for the new LCD TV is not going on ebay... at least not just yet. ;)

Cool Auto Rickshaw

I had never imagined that it may become 'cool' to own an autorickshaw. Growing up in the city of Nagpur, the cycle-rickshaws were an integral part of life. I used to go to school in a monthly hire rickshaw when I was in 5th standard. Devidas (the rickshaw owner) used to carry four or five of us to school from our home. Sometime around that time, he bought an auto-rickshaw and we went to school sometimes in an auto. That was cool.

As we grew up the coolness quotient of different vehicles changed...
It was cool to go to school on your own bicycle (6th standard)
It was cool to have a moped, usually a Luna TFR (10th / 11th)
It was cool to have a scooter (12th +)
It was cool to have a motorbikes like Hero Honda CD 100 or KB 100 or YAMAHA RX 100 (BE)

When I moved to Mumbai in 1997, the definition of coolness changed again, and we were the bunch who would consider travelling in an auto as a privilege. Friends who could afford that were fondly referred to as 'Ma' and 'Mama'. During those days, It was cool for the rickshaw wallahs in mumbai (MH02 or MH03) to have 'Deck' in their 'rick'

If I go to Mumbai now, will I see these really cool new autos from TVS? I assure you that in Mumbai, the ricks definitely need seat belts, and these could come handy in the suburban Mumbai. As 'Cool Cab' is to normal taxi, I think these can become the 'cool rick' of suburban Mumbai. I can see myself getting into one of these outside Andheri Station and saying 'Dost, deck lagao aur chalo saat bungla'

Still a 3 seater, driver will be more confortable using the steering wheel instead of the traditional handle (Hamara Bajaj)

Devidas would have loved to get his hand on one of these.

Da Vinci Code Day 24

Two books, 'so dark the con of man' and 'madonna of the rocks' were the answers to todays simple puzzle.



I am off to buy a brand new stand for my LCD TV :)

Da Vinci Code Day 23

What can I say?

Similar to last geography challenge, even before assembling the jigsaw, it was obvious that the city is Paris, thanks to the picture of the lawns around eiffel tower. Everybody who has visited the eiffel tower has a few pictures of those lawns (??) in their collection. After I submitted my answer as 'Paris', just like the previous geography puzzles, it asked me to find symbols, not one or two but nine symbols this time.

The symbols were connected and another question came up asking about the sequence 0,1,4,9... The correct answer was 'Square Numbers'.

Last day tomorrow...

Da Vinci Code Day 22

Let the images speak for themselves...




2 More days to go, back to work now.

Da Vinci Code Day 21

I had a bizarre experience today with the curator puzzle. I solved one puzzle, (did not take the screenshot) and it asked me for the following question :
Q. According to Vol. IV of The Eclectic Review, whose childhood was distinguished by the inevitable persecutions which all geniuses are fated to endure?

I answered as follows :
A. Michael Angelo Buonarroti

It accepted the answer and when I got back to the original page, the puzzle was not marked as solved. So I set to do the puzzle again. For those who might be interested, the layout of the hooks was different from the one i initially got. I have been noticing this for all the puzzles and questions that they are not the same. This time I did take the screenshot of the puzzle (which is shown in the image on the side) and the question asked to me was :

Q. According to Vol. XXIII of The Eclectic Review, the number of christians in cochin china is how many?

I tried searching for the answer and couldn't do book search as I had apparently exceeded the amount of searches that are allowed on the book because of copyright reasons :(

Anyways, I then pressed the refresh button on my browser and found that my first answer had been accepted and the puzzle is now marked as solved.

This experience is more mysterios than the Da Vinci Code :)

Only 3 more days to go.

Da Vinci Code Day 20

The honeycomb puzzle today. My least favourite. I managed to finish it in very little time. The question asked to me was :
Q. As A Florentine Revery begins, our first impression is one of what?

and the answer of course was :
A. Perfect Harmony

Only 4 more to go....

Da Vinci Code Day 19

I was waiting impatiently to get to todays puzzle. The symbols one is my favourite. I am sure everybody gets a different kind of arrangement for the symbols puzzle. My puzzle was as shown in the image. The iamge shows all the symbols arranged except one. The question which appeared after the completion was "Modern rome appeared, first and last, to william dean howells as ..... and the answer was 'hideous'.

See you tomorrow.

Da Vinci Code Day 18

Todays puzzle of the 'Da Vinci code quest on google' was an easy one. At least it was easy for me as even before assembling the jigsaw I could recognise 'the serpentine' in hyde park. Once I replied London, it asked me to find 4 blades, again that wasn't too difficult. It then formed a cross joining the 4 blades and asked me for the place where the X is

I tried 'Kensington', 'Science Museum' and 'Natural History Museum' as my answers before realising that it was asking me a specific question and the answer it was looking for was 'Imperial college'

To sum it up, day 18 of the Da Vinci code quest on google was an extremely easy one, or living in London may have helped me. Looking forward to day 19.