Resize an Exam Photo to Exact KB

Recruitment portals check three things before a human ever sees your form: pixel dimensions, byte size and format. The windows are narrow by web standards — a 200×230 px photo between 20 and 50 KB for SSC-pattern forms, 140×60 px signatures between 10 and 20 KB, UPSC's more generous 20–300 KB — and they cut both ways: files can be too small as well as too big, because a suspiciously tiny JPEG suggests an unusable image.

Hitting a byte window at fixed pixels is a quality-search problem, and that is literally how this tool solves it: a binary search over JPEG quality, walking the encoder until the output lands inside your preset's window, then reporting the exact bytes achieved. If your source cannot reach the window at the mandated pixels — a rare case with very flat images below floors — it says so and explains, instead of uploading you into a portal error.

The presets encode the recurring patterns across Indian recruitment bodies as shipped defaults, but notifications override presets: every recruitment cycle publishes its own annexure, and boards occasionally change windows between cycles. Treat the preset as the fast path, and if your notification states different numbers, type them into the custom fields — the same search hits any window.

Two practical notes from the rejection pile. Portals want recent photos matching your appearance at the exam hall, and several now ask for the photo to show a date strip — check your notification. And save the exact file you uploaded; admit-card verification sometimes compares against it, and "the same photo re-exported" is not byte-identical.