COOL WEB SITE: ePassportPhoto.com

As you probably know, Congress passed some “anti-terror” legislation a few years ago that requires American citizens entering the United States from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean to have passports, where previously a driver’s license and\or birth certificate might have sufficed. This has led to an explosion passport requests, as people that might never have gotten a passport in the past now need one for almost all international travel.

Part of getting a passport is having pictures of yourself taken for it. While you’ve always been able to use your own pictures, most people opted to get them taken at a professional photo shop. This is mostly likely due to the photo requirements of the passport office: the pictures must be 2×2″ and have a neutral (white or off-white) background. These are hardly insurmountable problems, mind you, but at the end of the day most people opted for the easy route and shelled out $8-$12 to have a “professional” take the pictures for you.

But no more. At the website ePassportPhoto, you can upload a digital photo of yourself and the website will crop it and make sure it fits all of the State Department’s requirements. It’ll then spit out six or eight 2×2″ photographs as a single image file that you can then print using your home printer, or print at your local Walgreens\Wal Mart\photo shop for less than 50¢. All you need to do is take a picture of yourself in front of “a white or off-white background” and make sure that you have a “neutral expression, open eyes, and closed mouth”. A few mouse clicks later and you’ve got passport photos!!

And it’s not just for Americans, either. ePassportPhoto has the skinny on passport picture requirements for over 60 countries, so whether you’re a Peruvian or Brit that needs a new set of passport pictures, ePassportPhoto can hook you up!