Search for the photo size for almost any Indian government exam and you will find a table. Search again on a different site and you will find the same table. Same numbers, same column order, often the same typos.
That agreement is not evidence that the numbers are right. It is evidence that everybody copied the same source. And where the copies disagree, at least one of them is wrong — which means somebody is uploading a file built to a spec that does not exist.
So we started opening the notifications instead.
How we check
Every claim on this site is meant to be traceable to a PDF published by the authority that runs the exam. The process is deliberately boring:
- Find the notification PDF on the authority's own domain — not an aggregator, not a coaching site.
- Extract its text and locate the clause that states the upload specification.
- Record the page number, so anyone can open the same PDF and read the same sentence.
- Compare it to what we have stored. If they differ, the notification wins.
Step 2 is harder than it sounds, and it is the reason this work is rare. Government notifications are long — the SSC CGL 2026 notice runs to 132 pages — and many of them embed subset fonts, which means the text in the file is stored as glyph numbers rather than letters. Extracted naively, an SSC notice comes out as an empty string and looks like a scanned image. It is not. Each font carries a small translation table, and once you follow it the whole document reads normally. Until we built that step, every SSC, NTA and JEE notification looked unreadable to us.
The finding that surprised us most
SSC does not publish pixel dimensions. For any exam. At all.
We have now read five SSC 2026 notices end to end — Combined Graduate Level (132 pages), Selection Posts Phase-XIV (129), Combined Hindi Translators (85), Stenographer (85) and Constable GD (74). That is 505 pages of official SSC text. The number of pixel dimensions printed across all five is zero. The only upload size stated anywhere is a file size, and it appears three times in each document:
That is clause 9.6, page 18 of the CGL 2026 notice; the same sentence appears on page 14 of the Stenographer notice, page 10 of the Constable GD notice and page 30 of Selection Posts Phase-XIV. SSC specifies the signature in centimetres, not pixels — and specifies no photograph upload size whatsoever, because since the move to the new portal the photograph is not uploaded at all. Clause 9.4:
You sit in front of the camera and the portal takes the picture. The Constable GD notice puts it even more plainly — it captures "a real-time photograph of the candidate while filling up the Online Application Form".
You do still need photographs, but not for the form: SSC requires you to carry two passport-size colour photographs to the examination venue.
So where does "SSC CGL photo: 275 × 354 px, 20–50 KB" come from? Not from SSC. And the two competing signature figures resolve cleanly once you see the real sentence:
- 236 × 79 px is exactly 6.0 × 2.0 cm converted at 100 DPI. Someone did the arithmetic and published the result.
- 140 × 60 px is IBPS's signature dimension, which shares the same 10–20 KB band. It appears to have been copied across to SSC's row because the file sizes matched. Its aspect ratio is 2.3:1; SSC's is 3:1. They are not the same shape.
If you are applying to an SSC exam: land inside 10–20 KB, keep the signature roughly three times as wide as it is tall, and ignore every pixel figure you have been shown.
The seventeen disagreements
These are the exams where the published numbers contradict each other. We are documenting them rather than silently picking a winner. Ten in this table are now settled against the notification itself; on the rest we have not yet read one, and a confident guess would be worse than an honest gap.
| Exam | What the charts disagree about |
|---|---|
| SSC CGL | Resolved and verified, p18. No pixel size exists; no photo upload; signature 10–20 KB at about 6.0 × 2.0 cm. |
| SSC Stenographer | Resolved and verified, p14. Same rule. Our old 236 × 79 px figure was a conversion, not a spec. |
| SSC GD Constable | Resolved and verified, p10. Same rule. Our old 240 × 80 px figure was invented. |
| SSC Selection Post | Resolved and verified, p30. Same rule. |
| SSC CHSL | Resolved and verified, p12. Same SSC rule. The notice disagrees with itself on the signature: 6.0 cm on p12 and p35, 4.0 cm on the p53 annexure. |
| SSC MTS | Resolved and verified, 2025 notice p13. Same SSC rule: no photo upload, signature 10–20 KB at about 6.0 × 2.0 cm. No MTS 2026 notice had been published when this was read. |
| Delhi Police Constable | The famous 40 × 60 px "typo" is moot: SSC publishes no pixel size for this exam either. |
| UPSC Civil Services | Resolved and verified against the portal Photos and Signature instruction, not the CAPF appendix. Photograph JPG 20–200 KB, no pixel size. Signature JPG 20–100 KB, 350–500 px. The 20–300 KB and 550–1000 px figures are the retired OTR FAQ. |
| RRB NTPC | Some charts say 240 × 240 px, others 320 × 240 px. RRB specs vary by zone and year. |
| RRB Group D | Same 240 × 240 vs 320 × 240 split as NTPC. |
| UPSSSC PET | Charts split sharply: 350 × 450 px at 50–100 KB, or 180 × 216 px at 20–50 KB. These are not close. |
| TNPSC | Some charts still list 150 × 200 px. TNPSC changed its OTR upload rules. |
| JEE Main | Resolved and verified, p10. Photo 10–200 KB, signature 10–100 KB. The 300 KB ceiling is not in the bulletin, and no pixel size is either. |
| NEET UG | Resolved and verified, p21. Photo 10–200 KB, signature 10–100 KB, no pixel size published. Our stored signature floor was 4 KB — below the real one. |
| GATE | Resolved and verified for 2026, brochure p22. A range, not one size: photo 200 × 260 to 530 × 690 px at 5–600 KB; signature 250 × 80 to 580 × 180 px at 3–300 KB. The organising institute still rotates and republishes. |
| Mizoram PSC | One chart lists no lower bound and a 10 MB ceiling — that reads like an unfilled template, not a rule. |
| Nagaland PSC | One chart lists no minimum file size. Treat the lower bound as unknown. |
Three patterns are worth noticing. The 40 × 60 and 10 MB entries are not disagreements about fact — they are propagated typos and unfilled placeholders nobody re-read. The RRB cases are not errors at all: those bodies genuinely change specs between cycles and zones, so any single number is right for some candidates and wrong for others. GATE 2026 states a range rather than one size. And the SSC block is the most instructive — seven exams, at least four different signature dimensions in circulation, and an authority that has never published one.
What this means if you are applying
The file size band is almost always the hard constraint. Portals reject on file size far more often than on exact pixel dimensions, and several — SSC among them — never state pixel dimensions to begin with.
So, in order:
- Open your own notification and find the upload clause. It is usually in the "How to apply" section, and it is usually about two-thirds of the way through.
- Hit the KB band exactly, including its lower bound. A file that is too small is refused just like one that is too large — see why portals reject files that are too small.
- Treat pixel dimensions as a target, not a rule, unless your notification states them explicitly.
- If a chart gives you a number your notification does not contain, believe the notification.
It is not only SSC. NTA does the same thing.
Having found that SSC prints no pixel dimensions, we checked the other body that sets sizes for millions of candidates: the National Testing Agency, which runs NEET and JEE Main.
We read both 2026 Information Bulletins end to end — NEET (UG) at 124 pages, JEE Main at 91. The word "pixel" does not appear in either document. Neither does any dimension, in any unit. What NTA states is a file size, and only a file size.
NEET (UG) 2026, page 21:
JEE Main 2026 says the same on page 10. So every chart publishing "NEET photo: 275 × 354 px" — ours included, until we fixed the page — is quoting a conversion somebody performed, not a rule NTA published. The requirement is the KB band and the 80% face framing.
Finding this cost us something. Our own NEET signature band was stored as 4–30 KB. The bulletin says 10–100 KB. Our floor was below the real floor, so a signature exported to 5 KB through this site would have been rejected by NTA for being too small — the exact failure this site exists to prevent. JEE Main was stored as 10–50 KB against a real 10–100 KB. Both are corrected, and both pages now say plainly that the pixel figure is ours and the KB band is NTA's.
One more thing worth knowing if you are applying: the NEET bulletin contradicts itself. Page 21 gives the finger and thumb impressions as 10 to 200 KB; page 22 gives them as 50 to 300 KB. Land between 50 and 200 KB and you satisfy both.
Where we have got to
Being straight about this: of 129 exam presets on this site, 33 are currently verified against the notification itself. The first ten are in the table below. Twelve more were checked after this page was first published — SSC MTS, SBI Clerk, SBI PO, TNPSC, RRB NTPC, CTET, CUET (UG), GATE, CAT, Kerala PSC, UPPSC and BPSC — and each of those pages cites its own notice. The full list, with dates, is on how we check sizes.
| verified | source | outcome |
|---|---|---|
| IBPS PO | CRP PO-XVI, p39 | matched all four uploads |
| IBPS Clerk | CRP CSA-XVI, p55 | matched all four uploads |
| IBPS RRB | CRP RRBs-XIV, p53 | matched all four uploads |
| SSC CGL | CGL 2026, p18 | our stored spec was wrong — corrected |
| SSC Stenographer | Steno 2026, p14 | our stored spec was wrong — corrected |
| SSC GD Constable | Constable GD 2026, p10 | our stored spec was wrong — corrected |
| SSC Selection Post | Phase-XIV 2026, p30 | our stored spec was wrong — corrected |
| SSC CHSL | CHSL 2026, p12 | confirmed the SSC-wide rule; notice contradicts itself |
| NEET UG | Bulletin 2026, p21 | our stored spec was wrong — corrected |
| JEE Main | Bulletin 2026, p10 | our stored spec was wrong — corrected |
Six of those ten turned up errors in our own data. We corrected them and said so here rather than quietly editing the numbers, because a verification process that only ever confirms what you already published is not a verification process.
Checked on 1 October 2026
Six more notices were opened after the twelve above. Five of the six had a stored band a portal would reject, or a signature box the notice does not use.
| verified | source | outcome |
|---|---|---|
| UPSC CAPF | CAPF (ACs) Examination 2026, Appendix II, p15 | stored ceilings were wrong — photograph JPG 20–200 KB, signature JPG 20–100 KB. No pixel size in the notice. |
| RRB Group D | CEN 08/2024, p25 (signature continues on p26) | stored KB bands were wrong — photograph 50–100 KB, signature 30–50 KB. 320 × 240 and 140 × 60 are in the CEN. |
| MPSC | Application instructions, p1 | stored KB bands were wrong — both uploads up to 50 KB, stated as 3.5 × 4.5 cm and 3.5 × 1.5 cm. No minimum. The PDF is dated 21 May 2021 and is still the file the portal hosts. |
| KPSC Karnataka | Gazetted Probationers 2026–27, p6, para 3.15 | stored KB bands were wrong — photograph up to 200 KB, signature within 70 KB. No pixel size. |
| NEET PG | NEET-PG 2025 information bulletin, photograph checklist p110 | stored floors and the signature box were wrong. Photograph less than 80 KB, no minimum. Signature 20–79 KB so the camera band (20–100 KB, p111) and the scan ceiling (less than 80 KB, 3.5 × 1.5 cm, p112) both hold. |
| RBI Assistant | Assistant, Panel Year 2025, section 9.6 | matched the stored photograph, signature, thumb impression and declaration. The pixels are preferred, not exact. A live photograph is also captured. |
Checked again on 1 October 2026
The exams left open above were read again. Five now have a primary document that states an upload size. CDS was added because NDA and CAPF already have their own pages, and the CDS notice uses the same portal instruction rather than CAPF’s appendix.
| verified | source | outcome |
|---|---|---|
| UPSC Civil Services | Photos and Signature instruction, p2 (signature on p5). The CSE 2026 notice, p2, points here and states no KB. | stored photograph ceiling was wrong — 20–200 KB, not 20–300. Signature 20–100 KB, dimensions 350–500 px. No photograph pixel size. |
| UPSC NDA | Same instruction. The NDA & NA (II) 2026 notice points at it and states no file size. | stored ceilings were wrong — photograph 20–200 KB, signature 20–100 KB. A 300 KB signature would be rejected. |
| UPSC CDS | Same instruction. The CDS (II) 2026 notice points at it and states no file size. | New preset. Same bands as the portal instruction. Not copied from CAPF. |
| India Post GDS | Schedule-II, July 2026, p23–24 | Stored pixels and KB already matched: photo 320 × 400, 30–100 KB; signature 300 × 120, 20–100 KB. DPI is 72–150, so the file is written at 150, not 200. The February 2026 manual, p20, still says a 50 KB signature ceiling. |
| RBI Grade B | Grade B PY 2026 scanning guidelines, p1 | Photograph and signature matched the stored preferred sizes. Thumb 20–50 KB and declaration 50–100 KB are stated. Their pixel sizes are not. The Assistant advertisement was not used. |
Left unverified. Army Agniveer rally notices that could be opened state printed passport photographs, not an upload size. Navy Agniveer: no current official upload-KB notice could be opened; a 2019 sailor notice on joinindiannavy.gov.in is not this entry. Air Force Agniveer: no official photo-KB notice found. Coast Guard: no CGEPT upload specification on an official site. WBCS: no current advertisement stating an upload size. EPFO: the 2023 SSA advertisement URL returned 404, and no later direct-recruitment notice stating a size was opened.
The rest carry an "unverified" badge and a link to the authority, because that is what they are. We would rather show you a gap than a confident number we have not checked. Each exam page states which of the two it is, and the verified ones cite the page you can read it on.
That list will get longer. This page will be updated as it does.