Filling in an Indian government exam form is mostly straightforward until you reach the upload step. Then you need a photograph of a specific size, in a specific shape, in a specific format, and a signature to a different set of numbers - and the commission that set those rules assumes you already know how to produce them.
Here is what the major recruiting bodies ask for, followed by the part most listicles leave out: how much you should trust any list like this one.
Read this before you use the numbers below
These numbers change between recruitment cycles, and sometimes between posts within one cycle. SSC alone has published both a 20-50 KB photo requirement and a 4-12 KB one in different years. A commission can revise its instructions in a corrigendum weeks after the notification goes out.
So the rule is simple and there is no way around it: your own exam's notification and the instruction page on its application portal are the authority. Everything below is a starting point that saves you hunting, not a specification you can rely on. Checking your notification takes ten seconds and saves a rejected form, which can cost you the entire cycle.
SSC (CGL, CHSL, MTS, GD Constable)
| Upload | Size | Shape | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photograph | 20-50 KB | 3:4 (portrait) | JPEG |
| Signature | 10-20 KB | 4:1 (wide) | JPEG |
SSC's one-time registration wants a recent colour passport photograph. Sign on plain white paper in black or blue ink and photograph or scan it. Note the 4:1 signature shape - a signature photographed on a full A4 sheet is nowhere near that ratio, which is why so many get refused before the size is even looked at.
IBPS (PO, Clerk, RRB)
| Upload | Size | Dimensions | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photograph | 20-50 KB | 200 x 230 pixels | JPEG |
| Signature | 10-20 KB | 140 x 60 pixels | JPEG |
Banking exams are the strictest about exact pixel dimensions rather than a ratio. 200 x 230 is not a standard photo size, so you will almost certainly need to resize rather than crop-and-hope.
UPSC (Civil Services, NDA, CDS)
| Upload | Size | Dimensions | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photograph | 20-300 KB | 350 x 350 pixels | JPEG |
| Signature | 20-300 KB | 350 x 350 pixels | JPEG |
UPSC has an extra requirement that no resizing tool can produce for you: your name and the date the photograph was taken must be visible on the photograph itself, printed across the bottom. Ask the studio for it, or add the strip yourself before you resize. Candidates get rejected for this every single cycle and it has nothing to do with file size.
RRB (Railway NTPC, Group D)
| Upload | Size | Shape | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photograph | 20-50 KB | 3:4 (portrait) | JPEG |
| Signature | 10-40 KB | 4:1 (wide) | JPEG |
Railways commonly require the photograph to have been taken within the last three months. An older photo can be refused at document verification even if it sailed through the upload, so this is not a rule to gamble on.
India Post GDS
| Upload | Size | Shape | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photograph | Up to 50 KB | 4:5 | JPEG |
| Signature | Up to 20 KB | 4:1 | JPEG |
The 4:5 ratio is unusual - slightly less tall than the 3:4 most other forms want - so a photo prepared for SSC will not simply drop into a GDS application unchanged.
Indian passport and visa photographs
| Upload | Size | Dimensions | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photograph | Up to 300 KB | 413 x 531 pixels at 300 DPI | 35 x 45 mm, plain white background |
413 x 531 at 300 DPI is 35 x 45 mm on paper. A resizer produces the digital file at the right pixel count and DPI; getting an actual print at the right physical size is your photo studio's job.
If your exam is not listed
State PSCs, universities, police recruitment boards and hundreds of smaller portals each have their own rules, and many state no size at all. A photograph under 100 KB in a 3:4 shape and a signature under 50 KB in a 4:1 shape is accepted by most of them, which is why the resizer offers that combination as "Generic government form". Check your own instruction page first regardless.
Producing the files without fighting an image editor
Getting a photo to 200 x 230 pixels and between 20 and 50 KB in a general-purpose editor means resizing, exporting, checking the file size, adjusting the quality slider and exporting again. The Exam Photo and Signature Resizer does it in one step: pick your exam and whether you are uploading a photo or a signature, drop the file in, and it fills in the size, dimensions and format and produces a file that lands inside the range rather than just under the ceiling. It also shows you the source note for every preset, so you can see where a number came from and judge it yourself.
Two related jobs worth knowing about. If your signature was photographed on paper and looks grey or shadowed, clean it up with the Signature Cleanup tool first - a photographed signature on grey paper gets refused even at the correct size. And if a portal has already rejected a file and you cannot tell which rule it broke, the Form Upload Checker compares your file against the spec and names the requirement that fails.
Everything runs in your browser and no file is uploaded to us.