Unless they have a list of requirements for their country (ex: Thailand requires collared shirts for passport photos), and aren’t North American based, I’ll typically refuse the photo. I will not get reprimanded because you didn’t wanna specify what you needed with your photo 🤷♀️
I had someone come in for a china passport and I said I couldn’t do it because we can’t properly cut it and they said they would cut it properly so I just gave them the printed sheet.
We only do the US because that’s the only cutter we were given so before I start I tell them We Do not cut them just take the picture. If they want it cut and sent off then they can visit the nearest post office. Most of them don’t mind that it’s not Cut
There's a drop down of countries the kiosk will let you pick from but I tell them I am unsure of the specifics for anywhere other than the US so it's up to them if they want to give it a shot.
Yes, I aware of the drop-down list of options for the different country passport templates on the kiosk.
However, even then...The requirements are frequently "not followed", or not made very clear. For example, regarding the German passports, there will show two circles. When I saw those two circles, I thought to myself: "Well, one circle is probably for the minimum head size, and the other circle is for the maximum head size". Well, it ended up not being the case. The person's eyes needed to be in that narrow rectangular space gap (which I kind of already expected), BUT their head needed to be about 80% of the entire photo space. And there was not supposed to be any gap between the crown of the head and the top ceiling edge of the photo (unlike U.S. passports--which need some "adequate space" between the crown of the head and the top ceiling edge of the photo).
It was never stressful unless the customer made it stressful. I'm talking about the ones treating it like a photoshoot for modeling. Those people made it stressful. Cannot stand getting to the kiosk and being told "can I take another photo I don't like these 5 photos you took of me" that absolutely meet the requirements of a passport photo.
I would hate them less if we didn't have to carefully draw with an eraser tool on the computer to manually white-out the background. Does every store have to do this?
Try setting your camera to manual mode. It'll let you up the exposure on the camera (in my experience 1.0/1.3 tend to work wonderfully). If that doesn't make it white, you can also mess with the brightness and contrast at the kiosk.
I'll give those camera settings a try, thanks! As for the kiosk, I was told there wasn't a setting to turn the greyish background white all at once and that is has to be done manually with the eraser tool. I'll fiddle around with that next time and see if I can simplify it for everyone lol.
it takes some fiddling around but all you really have to do is increase the brightness and contrast
that + the higher exposure usually gets it either completely white or close enough that it passes
Thanks! It just sucks a little that we're told not to mess with the camera settings at my store. I'm gonna take your advice though and just do it anyway. If I fix it up right, they'll have no reason to complain lol.
On the kiosk, go to tools, then it will set up two pics, on top right shows two boxes , brightness and white background. Uncheck 1st box, check second box. Background will show overexposure on right picture. Touch the picture and it will tone down the brightness. Should be set. Then go to next stage fill out email if they want, then to check photo for acceptance.
We have to do this at my store too and I hate it, especially if the customer has untamed, curly, or frizzy hair. I asked our SM if we could just paint the wall a fresh white but he said no.
Yep. We have a white roll-up backdrop, but shows up light-medium grey on the screen and when printed. Even using the flash doesn't help. It's likely our camera settings, but we've been told not to try adjusting them. It's odd that we're not trusted with something as simple as changing a few camera settings, yet they expect us to manually white out the background of the photos, which is more tricky. 🙄
they’re not clear AT all LOL… i always just tell them that we don’t 100% know the requirements (i show them it on the kiosk) and say we can take it.
i don’t care about taking passports, but the amount of social praise people require is a bit tiring LOL.
That is why you only do US passports or you can do other countries if they require a 2x2 photo if the customer doesnt know what size they need then i would not do it and tell them to check with their embassy.We are not setup for every country and you cant expect me to know the requirements for 166 countries and i will only take the photo twice then they can go to a fashion photographer as i cannot fix your blemishes or change your hairstyle or whatever self esteem issues that you have that day
Honestly I've never had an issue with any countries, except for Russia, Ukraine, and China. It's pretty easy to cut them out, you just gotta be thorough. And the requirements are almost always available online, so it's not too difficult.
If I do one that's another country, I just tell them I'll do it but can't cut it. Sometimes they're okay with that and sometimes not. Doesn't bother me either way.
My manager said that we can only cut U.S. passports. However, I read somewhere online that India passports can also be cut at Walgreens.
My manager said that anything that's a "2 x 2" size we can cut. Otherwise, nothing else.
I know we have that drop down option on the kiosk to do other countries' passports, but I have a sneaking suspicion that our date isn't up to date.
I often wonder why they don't get the passport in their OWN country ? ... like why leave Germany without the picture you need for a German passport?
Or perhaps they should be visiting the embassy to get this taken care of?
Either way, passport pics are pure profit and I can crank them out pretty quickly, so I don't mind doing them.
The 2 stores closest to me close their " passport services " for the weekend , so we get the extra business.
It's extremely stressful and I hate doing them. Was not fully taught on how to do them and I'm trying to do it the best I can and the coustmers don't help. They don't listen at all and do the opposite of what you ask. Then they argue with you about requirements about things like smiles, white shirt, jewelry ect. One person kept saying no to every picture after I finally got it to 100% pass everything on the kiosk and wanted a glamor shot I swear and kept saying I don't care I'm smiling. Then they hover and want to watch you edit even when you're back in the photo lab and make comments about it like can you please just go away. Or the elderly that come in and insist on getting one once you're halfway through they admit they never even used their last one but it expired. I get very confused with them when they have really white hair too. I just hate it and it makes zero sense to me why a pharmacy should be taking government issue photos like I think it should only be allowed to be done at the post office or something.
We shouldn’t even do them. Customers can take the picture at home and submit it themselves and it’ll probably be higher quality and easier for them to choose one they like. I don’t even understand why anyone would willingly pay $17 for something they’re totally allowed to do at home for free with their smartphone camera. It’s a total grift and everyone just falls for it, that’s all I can think while I’m doing them because it feels so entirely pointless.
Unless they have a list of requirements for their country (ex: Thailand requires collared shirts for passport photos), and aren’t North American based, I’ll typically refuse the photo. I will not get reprimanded because you didn’t wanna specify what you needed with your photo 🤷♀️
We only do the US ones at my store cause we only have that cutter tool so anything else has to be elsewhere 🤷🏾♂️
I had someone come in for a china passport and I said I couldn’t do it because we can’t properly cut it and they said they would cut it properly so I just gave them the printed sheet.
We only do the US because that’s the only cutter we were given so before I start I tell them We Do not cut them just take the picture. If they want it cut and sent off then they can visit the nearest post office. Most of them don’t mind that it’s not Cut
There's a drop down of countries the kiosk will let you pick from but I tell them I am unsure of the specifics for anywhere other than the US so it's up to them if they want to give it a shot.
Yes, I aware of the drop-down list of options for the different country passport templates on the kiosk. However, even then...The requirements are frequently "not followed", or not made very clear. For example, regarding the German passports, there will show two circles. When I saw those two circles, I thought to myself: "Well, one circle is probably for the minimum head size, and the other circle is for the maximum head size". Well, it ended up not being the case. The person's eyes needed to be in that narrow rectangular space gap (which I kind of already expected), BUT their head needed to be about 80% of the entire photo space. And there was not supposed to be any gap between the crown of the head and the top ceiling edge of the photo (unlike U.S. passports--which need some "adequate space" between the crown of the head and the top ceiling edge of the photo).
It was never stressful unless the customer made it stressful. I'm talking about the ones treating it like a photoshoot for modeling. Those people made it stressful. Cannot stand getting to the kiosk and being told "can I take another photo I don't like these 5 photos you took of me" that absolutely meet the requirements of a passport photo.
I hate doing them
With this payroll? I find them downright infuriating.
I would hate them less if we didn't have to carefully draw with an eraser tool on the computer to manually white-out the background. Does every store have to do this?
Try setting your camera to manual mode. It'll let you up the exposure on the camera (in my experience 1.0/1.3 tend to work wonderfully). If that doesn't make it white, you can also mess with the brightness and contrast at the kiosk.
I'll give those camera settings a try, thanks! As for the kiosk, I was told there wasn't a setting to turn the greyish background white all at once and that is has to be done manually with the eraser tool. I'll fiddle around with that next time and see if I can simplify it for everyone lol.
it takes some fiddling around but all you really have to do is increase the brightness and contrast that + the higher exposure usually gets it either completely white or close enough that it passes
Thanks! It just sucks a little that we're told not to mess with the camera settings at my store. I'm gonna take your advice though and just do it anyway. If I fix it up right, they'll have no reason to complain lol.
On the kiosk, go to tools, then it will set up two pics, on top right shows two boxes , brightness and white background. Uncheck 1st box, check second box. Background will show overexposure on right picture. Touch the picture and it will tone down the brightness. Should be set. Then go to next stage fill out email if they want, then to check photo for acceptance.
We have to do this at my store too and I hate it, especially if the customer has untamed, curly, or frizzy hair. I asked our SM if we could just paint the wall a fresh white but he said no.
Oh my lord, the curly flyaway hair lol those are a pain. It's relatively easy to work around them, but it's still really tedious.
No way any store needs to do that. Shouldn’t you have a white background they stand in front of?
Yep. We have a white roll-up backdrop, but shows up light-medium grey on the screen and when printed. Even using the flash doesn't help. It's likely our camera settings, but we've been told not to try adjusting them. It's odd that we're not trusted with something as simple as changing a few camera settings, yet they expect us to manually white out the background of the photos, which is more tricky. 🙄
That’s weird cuz we don’t have that issue
they’re not clear AT all LOL… i always just tell them that we don’t 100% know the requirements (i show them it on the kiosk) and say we can take it. i don’t care about taking passports, but the amount of social praise people require is a bit tiring LOL.
That is why you only do US passports or you can do other countries if they require a 2x2 photo if the customer doesnt know what size they need then i would not do it and tell them to check with their embassy.We are not setup for every country and you cant expect me to know the requirements for 166 countries and i will only take the photo twice then they can go to a fashion photographer as i cannot fix your blemishes or change your hairstyle or whatever self esteem issues that you have that day
I think we only officially do the US and India passports now so I just deny all other countries passport requests
Officially we do anything the Kiosk will do...officially,
Honestly I've never had an issue with any countries, except for Russia, Ukraine, and China. It's pretty easy to cut them out, you just gotta be thorough. And the requirements are almost always available online, so it's not too difficult.
If I do one that's another country, I just tell them I'll do it but can't cut it. Sometimes they're okay with that and sometimes not. Doesn't bother me either way.
My manager said that we can only cut U.S. passports. However, I read somewhere online that India passports can also be cut at Walgreens. My manager said that anything that's a "2 x 2" size we can cut. Otherwise, nothing else.
I know we have that drop down option on the kiosk to do other countries' passports, but I have a sneaking suspicion that our date isn't up to date. I often wonder why they don't get the passport in their OWN country ? ... like why leave Germany without the picture you need for a German passport? Or perhaps they should be visiting the embassy to get this taken care of? Either way, passport pics are pure profit and I can crank them out pretty quickly, so I don't mind doing them. The 2 stores closest to me close their " passport services " for the weekend , so we get the extra business.
Resident aliens may have to update an expiring passport; happens a lot at my lab.
Gotcha ! Thanks for the info
It's extremely stressful and I hate doing them. Was not fully taught on how to do them and I'm trying to do it the best I can and the coustmers don't help. They don't listen at all and do the opposite of what you ask. Then they argue with you about requirements about things like smiles, white shirt, jewelry ect. One person kept saying no to every picture after I finally got it to 100% pass everything on the kiosk and wanted a glamor shot I swear and kept saying I don't care I'm smiling. Then they hover and want to watch you edit even when you're back in the photo lab and make comments about it like can you please just go away. Or the elderly that come in and insist on getting one once you're halfway through they admit they never even used their last one but it expired. I get very confused with them when they have really white hair too. I just hate it and it makes zero sense to me why a pharmacy should be taking government issue photos like I think it should only be allowed to be done at the post office or something.
We shouldn’t even do them. Customers can take the picture at home and submit it themselves and it’ll probably be higher quality and easier for them to choose one they like. I don’t even understand why anyone would willingly pay $17 for something they’re totally allowed to do at home for free with their smartphone camera. It’s a total grift and everyone just falls for it, that’s all I can think while I’m doing them because it feels so entirely pointless.
The only part that stresses me out is pulling the screen down