Hi All

For indian tourist visa, I need to take a passport-size photo but the machine-automats just prints only 3.5cm X 4.5cm.

Is there somebody knows how and where to get the 4cm X 4cm photos? Professional photo-studios will be surely expensive. I would appreciate if somebody has some alternate solutions :-)

Thanks in advance.

Best Regards

Any shop selling cameras will make some for you. For cheaper alternatives, maybe the Indian Embassy has helpful ideas?

The Indian embassy (well, their visa agents which are quite close to Bern station) sent me to the automatic photo machine just outside the post office a couple of doors away from the station.

Whatever option I picked, it was accepted. I can't remember now if they were perfectly square or not. I think they weren't, actually, but they were accepted and I got my visa.

Edit: When I went, the requirements were for square photos. So do ask them where to get them done. Or just get slightly bigger ones and cut them yourself.

Thanks for your replies.

They need nowadays a square photo and not a rectangle one.

Some more alternatives will be appreciated as well.

You can make your own.

Passport photo tutorial

Lots more tutorials if you Google make your own passport photo.

Thank you once again.

I already looked at those tutorials :-) but in the indian embassy website its written as follows:
Do not retouch or otherwise enhance or soften the photo.

You don't have to retouch them. Just get an image, crop it like they request, and print on photo paper.

If you're near Morges, there's an excellent photo studio/shop just round the corner from the station. They did our square photos for US visas, and they were fine. About 30 CHFs, from memory, to take and print the photos (you get 4).

Having been there and done that, here's a few points:

- the required size is 2" by 2", i.e. roughly 5cm square (not 4cm)
- VFS, the company that handles the visa applications in Berne (so that a "handling fee" can be earned on top of the visa fees) have a machine that prints these pictures. Cost: CHF 20 for two.
- the professional photographer in Horgen charges CHF 22 for two, but they look a lot better.

Thank you Mud, Kodokan, Tom Tulpe and all others.

I dont want to spend more to print out as I dont have a photo printer.

The 5cm X 5cm is only those who apply through VFS in berne. As I am living in french-speaking part I think [ as it is not so clear :-( ] I can only apply in Geneva and not in Bern. The website pmindiaun.org does not clarify this point. Regarding this, I found on their website about the jurisdiction as follows:

1) Applicants living in French speaking part of Switzerland (Geneva, Neuchatel, Valais and Vaud Cantons) can apply at the Consulate General of India, Geneva. Applicants living in other parts of Switzerland can apply only at Embassy of India, Bern.

For this reason, I have to apply in geneva and their photo-requirements are different which is 4cm X 4cm

Thank you all for your advices.

If you have a color inkjet, any color inkjet, yer cookin with gas. Don't need no photo printer.

To Mud,

hahaha i meant i do not have a printer :-) that was a typo...

its like telling... with this machine (photocopier) one can make photocopies in all the languages hahhaha