My lovely bride and I are going on an out-of-the-country cruise next year, and though I have a current passport Heather does not. Of course rather than get a photo taken at a local story with their lovely house fluorescent lighting, I did a quick set up to take our own.

When I sat down to the computer I realized I had made a Photoshop layout in the past for passport photos, but had found the results unsatisfying. Here’s a little background as to why:

• The US government has some pretty strict specifications you are to follow for a proper passport photo. You can read a bit more about it here.
• My previous layout had placed 6, 2″x2″ photos on a 4″x6″ file that I figured maximized the space and gave me some spare photos
• When I learned is that most print labs slightly enlarge your photo to fit their print process so they can provide a borderless photo
• This slight cropping both enlarged the actual print size of my 2″x2″ photos, plus it cropped them in undesirable ways causing the photos to be improperly centered and therefore not meeting the required specifications

Being that I use Lightroom for 95% of my digital photo workflow, and that I get asked fairly often by friends if I can help them make a quick ID or passport photo, I figured a print template was needed. I did quick search online, and though some templates seemed to exist, a quick search didn’t bring up any free ones. Definitely something needing to be fixed!

I created a quick layout for the Print Module that creates a 6″x4″ file at 300ppi, cut guidelines and a message asking the print lab to print at actual size. The photo you have chosen can be selected and will auto fill the two placements within the template.

Here are a few tips to help you get just the right placement of your photo:

• Be sure “zoom to fill” and “rotate to fit” are selected in the Image Settings of the Print Module
• If your photo is off center, you can Command-Click-n-Drag (Control on PC) to move the photo around within the box
• If you need to further adjust placement, you can go back to the Rotate tool within the Develop Module to adjust the sizing of the original image
• You may need to edit your “Identity Plate” text to have the correct message appear advising the print shop to print actual size.
• Under the “Print Job” pane of the Print Module, select Print to “JPEG file,” then when you are ready just click “Print to file” to then output your image

That’s it. You now have a perfectly sized set of two photos (what is usually required for most passport and ID needs) that you can upload to your favorite print shop!

If you’d like a copy of this template, you can download it here.

Of course you need to have Adobe Lightroom installed for this to be of any use to you. To install, simply go to the Print Module, then right click the “User Templates” or any other custom folder, then choose “import.” Enjoy!

Edit: Oh, why a 4×6 instead of a 3.5×5 you ask? Because Lightroom’s minimum document size for the Print Module is 4×6

Good questions. First, here’s why you should care.

Unlike getting website updates or ezines by email, RSS feeds give you absolute, 100% complete control over the situation.

You don’t have to reveal your email address. If you want to stop receiving content, you don’t have to request to be ‘taken off the list.’

One click, and poof? the subscription is gone.

Plus, since there’s no email address involved, there’s no way a publisher can sell, rent or give away the means to contact you.

That’s right? no more spam, viruses, phishing, or identity theft. And best of all, no reason to put yourself at the mercy of the publisher’s intentions.

You won’t need to suffer through the legalese in the privacy policy (if there is one) looking for loopholes that will send you deeper into inbox hell. No more setting up dummy Hotmail accounts “just in case.”

Again, if you don’t like the content, you can make it disappear as fast as you can change a TV channel. With just one click.

Pretty cool, huh?

That is cool! Umm? What the heck is RSS?

Alright! Now we’re ready to get to that part.

RSS is a simply an Internet technology standard that allows busy people to receive updates to web-based content of interest.

You might have figured that much out by now. But basically, that’s the essence of an RSS feed, you subscribe and then receive new content automatically in your feed reader.

If you actually want to know how RSS works, click here.

What the heck is a feed reader?

You may already be using a form of feed reader, and not even realize it. If you use personalized home page services like Google Home, My Yahoo or My MSN, you’ve got RSS capabilities built in. That’s how syndicated content like news, weather and stock quotes appears on your personal page. You can also add content from any blog or other site that uses RSS to provide updates.

Other web-based tools are primarily dedicated to feed reading only. One of the most popular web-based feed readers at this point is Bloglines, and it’s also free and easy to get started with. Newer and growing fast is Google Reader, which is what I personally use. I recommend you check it out both because it is easy and you can even access it via your mobile phone browser if you are really savvy.

If you use the Firefox browser, you can also receive RSS feeds from your tool bar by using the Live Bookmarks function. The new version of Internet Explorer (IE7) now has this feature as well.

Finally, there are desktop-based feed readers. These function somewhat like an email program for feeds. Examples include Newsgator and Feed Demon.

If it sounds complicated, it’s really not. And things will get even easier when the next version of Outlook integrates feed-reading capabilities. So, you’ll have the same convenience that email subscriptions offered in the old days, without any of the terrible consequences of giving out your email address to potentially unscrupulous characters.

Sounds good. So how do I subscribe to a Feed?

First of all, look for the subscription or feed options (some bloggers make this difficult for some odd reason). You might see a variety of buttons (amusingly called chicklets).

If the site you want to subscribe to uses FeedBurner to aid in the subscription process (like Copyblogger and many other popular sites), you’ll likely see the standard RSS icon, which takes you to a page that will give you an array of the most popular feed readers so you can select yours, and you’ll go from there. This is the new standard RSS icon:

Sometimes there will be a chicklet for your particular reader right on the blog that will take you to the appropriate subscription page. You may see these (among others):

Finally, you may also see little orange buttons that say XML or RSS. Often these chicklets will take you to a page that looks like code gibberish. In this case, you simply cut and paste the page URL from your browser window and manually paste it into your feed reader subscription function.

Hopefully this last method will soon disappear, never to be seen again.

In summary: RSS solves BIG problems.

So there you have it. RSS is being adopted at a phenomenal rate, because it’s a good thing for everyone.

The benefit to readers is obvious. And it’s good for publishers too, because we want to make sure that people feel comfortable subscribing, and that our message is not nuked by an overzealous spam filter.

If there’s anything here that is confusing, or you have a question, please contact me and I’ll be happy to help!

Thanks to Copyblogger for a helping hand with this tutorial.