Exam form photo and signature specs: what the official documents actually say

Why the numbers you find online disagree

We went looking for the specifications behind the common exam queries and found genuine contradictions almost everywhere. Different guides give different KB ranges for the same exam. Some quote pixel dimensions where the official document gives centimetres. Several publish figures for an exam that has since changed how it collects photographs entirely.

Some of this is careless copying. Some of it is real: specifications change between recruitment cycles, and an article written for last year's notice is simply out of date rather than wrong. And at least once the official document itself was inconsistent between two of its own sections.

So rather than add another confident table, this page separates what we verified in a primary source from what we could not. Where we could not, we say so.

SSC: the photograph is no longer uploaded

This is the single most widespread error in published guides, and it will waste your time if you believe it.

The Staff Selection Commission's official notice states that “the application module has been designed to capture a photograph of the candidate”. The photograph is taken live through the application module at the time you fill the form. You are not preparing a photo file and uploading it, so a guide telling you to resize an SSC photograph to a particular KB value is describing a step that no longer exists.

The instructions that do apply to that live capture are about the capture itself: a clear, full-frontal view, without cap or spectacles. Applications with photographs that do not match the acceptable specimens can be rejected.

The signature is still uploaded, and here the notice is specific:

Candidates are required to upload the scanned signature in JPEG format (10 to 20 KB). The image dimension of the signature should be about 4.0 cm (width) x 2.0 cm (height). Applications with blurred Signatures will be rejected summarily.

Note “rejected summarily”. A blurred signature is not a warning, it is a rejection. Scanning rather than photographing, and cropping close to the signature, is worth the extra few minutes.

One caution we ran into directly: a recent SSC notice gave different suggested signature dimensions in its main body and in one of its annexures. When a document disagrees with itself, the live upload page is the tie-breaker, because that is the thing actually validating your file.

IBPS: the most completely specified of the lot

IBPS publishes a dedicated scanning and uploading guidelines document with its recruitment notifications, and it is unusually precise. These figures are quoted from one such official document. Treat them as the shape of the requirement and confirm against the guidelines attached to the specific recruitment you are applying for, because they are issued per cycle.

The document also sets a scanner floor: set the scanner resolution to a minimum of 200 dpi. And it specifies the failure behaviour, which is useful to know in advance. If the file size and format are not as prescribed, the upload form shows an error rather than silently accepting the file.

The two requirements almost every guide omits

Look at that table again. The thumb impression and the handwritten declaration have their own dimensions and their own KB ranges, and they are completely different from the photograph and signature. The declaration in particular is a wide, short image at 800 by 400 pixels and allows a much larger 50 KB to 100 KB file.

These are where people get caught, because they prepare the photo and signature carefully, then rush the other two at the end of a long form. Both must be written on plain white paper. The declaration must be in English and in your own handwriting, not typed.

Exams where we could not verify a primary source

For several popular exams we found only secondary sources, and they disagreed with each other. We are not going to publish numbers we could not confirm, because a wrong KB figure on a page like this costs somebody a real application.

For NTA examinations such as NEET, JEE Main and CUET, published guides broadly agree that the photograph and signature are uploaded as JPG or JPEG with file size ranges in the tens to low hundreds of kilobytes, and that the face should occupy most of the frame against a white background. The specific ranges quoted vary between sources. The authoritative version is the Information Bulletin issued for your exam and year, which NTA publishes as a PDF alongside the application link.

For Railway Recruitment Board examinations, sources disagree on both the KB range and the image orientation, and the orientation genuinely differs between NTPC and Group D in some cycles. Check the notification for the specific recruitment.

How to find the authoritative answer in two minutes

1. Go to the official website for the examining body, not a coaching site.
2. Open the notification or information bulletin PDF for your exam and year. The upload rules are usually in an annexure or appendix near the back, often titled something like guidelines for scanning and uploading.
3. Read the file size as a range. Many specify a minimum as well as a maximum, and a file under the minimum is rejected just as firmly as one over the maximum.
4. If the notice contradicts itself, or your file keeps failing, trust the upload page. Many portals state the accepted range next to the file picker, and that text reflects what the validator is actually enforcing.

Preparing the files once you know the numbers

Every requirement above is a combination of dimensions, a format and a size range, and they are best handled in that order. Crop to the right shape, resize toward the stated dimensions, then compress into the middle of the KB range rather than at its edge.

The five specifications on this page are built into our photo and document sizer as presets, under Indian exam / recruitment forms. Choosing one sets the exact pixel dimensions, prefills the KB ceiling, and targets the range rather than only the maximum.

The contradiction in the signature requirement

Read the IBPS signature row again and something does not add up. It asks for 140 by 60 pixels, and a file of 10 to 20 KB.

Those two things fight each other. 140 by 60 is 8,400 pixels, most of them white paper around a few dark strokes. There is no JPEG of that image which is 10 KB. At maximum quality it lands somewhere around 2 to 3 KB. Follow the pixel dimensions exactly and you will fail the minimum every time.

The resolution is in the wording. The dimensions are given as preferred. The file size is given as a range the upload validates. So the pixel figure is guidance and the KB floor is the rule, which means the correct move is to scan at a higher resolution and submit a proportionally larger image that lands inside the range.

This is why the same requirement defeats so many people. They do exactly what the specification says, produce a 2 KB file, and get rejected by a minimum they followed the instructions straight into. Our sizer handles it by rendering at a multiple of the preferred dimensions from your original scan until the file clears the floor, and it tells you when it has done that and why.

Our custom-size compressor targets an exact figure, and the guide on hitting an exact KB size without ruining quality covers why resolution, not the quality slider, is usually the right lever. Everything runs inside your browser, which matters here because these files are your signature, your thumb impression and your face.

Figures on this page were read from official SSC and IBPS documents in September 2026. Specifications are reissued with each recruitment cycle. Always confirm against the notice for the exam you are actually applying to.