Immigration Equality - DV Lottery Photo Requirements

DV Lottery Photo Requirements

One of the most difficult components of the DV Lottery Application is the photo requirement. Immigration Equality has tried to provide simple instructions to assist you in submitting a photo that meets the photo specifications necessary to submit an acceptable application.

In order to submit a lottery application you must email a photograph that meets the following standards. http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/photo.aspx

The instructions of this page are difficult to understand so here are step-by-step instructions on how to edit the photo to meet the Department of State specifications.

1. Set your camera to small jpeg setting

2. Frame the subject in the exact center of the frame, such that the tip of the nose is in the center point of the viewfinder

3. Following the DOS instruction list for composition (i.e., you must shoot on a plain background, with flat lighting, no smiles, take your glasses off, put the shoulders at the bottom of the frame, DO NOT make adjustments for contrast, color etc.)

4. In iPhoto, Photoshop, ImageTool or whatever else, crop the picture to exactly 600x600 pixels, and reduce resolution to 72 dpi. THE FOLLOWING IS ONLY RELEVANT IN PHOTOSHOP*: If you are using Photoshop make sure it is flattened, 8 bit. NOTE: "8 bit" refers to a setting for Photoshop, if you see a "color depth" setting, make sure it is set to 24 bit.

5. Once you have taken the photo, use Internet Explorer to upload it to http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/photo.aspx to check to see if it meets their requirements. NOTE: You cannot use Firefox or any other browser for this; you must use Internet Explorer.

*If you do not have iPhoto or Photoshop and need to resize your image you can download this free software. ImageTool 1.4.1 is easy to get and quite easy to use. (You can download at http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/31066). It has essentially one function, and that is to resize a photo and create a new version. It has two windows within the dialog box: the one on the left is where you drag the source image, and the one on the right is where the new version is previewed. In between, you just dial in which size numbers you want, and tell it where to save.

still having problems? Contact Immigration Equality

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