I found the following paragraph in ACP 20 relating to photos for the MOD 90.
Does anyone have any idea what the bold sentence means? Are we expected to hand-draw our photos? Perhaps send in a bark carving?
Are the usual photo-booth photos adequate if the face is framed correctly etc?
Thanks
Basically means your average laser or ink jet. The photo booths are a different style of printing. God knows whih ey can’t just say that instead of being smart about it
I printed mine on photo paper at home. It was fine.
So did I.
Why they can’t use the photo you have done for passport / driving licence is an even bigger mystery. I think that now if you have a current licence or passport and apply for either one, they use that photo. If it’s good enough for those, it should be more than good enough for the MoD.
Ahh but it needs to be in uniform - and I have known it to be questioned if they cant see the tie…
Seems fairly straightforward wear a blue shirt and tie when you get your passport etc done.
Most stations will photoshop a wedge wood blue shirt and tie onto a normal photo these days!
I’m wearing a white tshirt in mine though you can’t actually see it as they crop the photo. If they question a photo that is obviously you but without a tie, they need to go take a long sit on the corner.
When I went to a photobooth to get my photo in uniform, it kept cropping the tie knot out of the photo - no matter how tall I sat or raised the seat.
not to mention the shadowing in the booth makes it look like I haddnt shaved…
Many photo booths use a standard photo type inkjet printer these days and have done for several years. Part of the MOD is obviously stuck in the last century!
“A standard inkjet printer”?
Standard for what, your home. No.
Standard for industry-specific photobooths, yes undoubtedly. Built for high capacity, average speed, durability and output style.
The largest part of the problem people experience is using the right type of paper for the ink. Inkjet printers are of brilliant quality these days, but throw some 80 gsm standard multi-use paper in and you might as well printn on bog roll. Bilding on that, photo paper which isn’t matched to the required finish is also a drain.
Actually many are just plain good old HP four/five ink photo printers exactly as you get at home - just not the cheap models. The output speed and quality is more than adequate given the low volume. I saw one being serviced the other day and it really was as basic as that - I expected much more clever stuff in there to be honest.
I don’t recall many homes needing a four or five ink system…
Cyan, yellow, magenta, and black. Some printers have a ‘photo black’ which is darker, but unnecessarily expensive for everyday document printing. That’s where the four or five colour designation come from.
My wife renewed her driving licence yesterday, her photo was taken at the post office digitally and presumably put directly into the DVLA system. My brother in law did it and had his licence back in about a week. We’ll wait and see when hers comes through.
Why can’t we have an electronic form, insert a digital photo and away you go. Someone is scanning the photo, so this would remove that need. Obviously some form of security would be needed to verify it’s you, but it would be pretty easy.
The DVLA pay the post office to do this for them. Lots of money! Because they are dealing with thousands of applications per year. Just inserting a jpg in a word doc and emailing it to wing HQAC wouldn’t give you the right quality image.
The DVLA pay the post office to do this for them. Lots of money! Because they are dealing with thousands of applications per year. Just inserting a jpg in a word doc and emailing it to wing HQAC wouldn’t give you the right quality image.[/quote]
Well the one on my wife’s licence ain’t brilliant, but they’ll use it for her passport as well.
You would have thought an emailed direct from the camera digital image would be of better quality than a printed digital image that is then scanned. I imagine the real problem with emailing a photo is the email system would implode.
It makes you wonder how do they do for those actually serving? Do they take a photo digitally, fiddle around if needed to get the right piccie, print it, stick it on a form and send it off, for it then to be scanned for the card. If so, someone needs to wake up to what is going on in the real world. We have photo id cards at work and personnel come along take your photo and the next day at the absolute latest you get your card, via the card printer they have. Simples.
I had an ID card photo taken at Cranwell about 8 years ago. Back then they stood you in front of a camera, snapped you, and printed 4 photos on a proper photographic printer. One of those hand cutters chops the 4 photos out to the correct size in one punch.
You then take the photo and stick it to your form.
I don’t know if it’s changed since then.
Cyan, yellow, magenta, and black. Some printers have a ‘photo black’ which is darker, but unnecessarily expensive for everyday document printing. That’s where the four or five colour designation come from.[/quote]
A lot of home photo printers will also have a photographic magenta and a photographic cyan, this is basically slightly lighter verso to give more depth to the colours. Most people can’t tell the difference and a cynic like me who used to work in the industry might think its a sham to make printing more expensive.