How to make a 20 KB photo — and which portals actually ask for it
20 KB can mean two completely different things: for Sarathi and PAN it's a ceiling, for IBPS it's a floor — and the approach for each is different.
JPG, PNG, WebP · up to 50 files at once · nothing is uploaded
20 KB photo specification
| Requirement | Value |
|---|---|
| Driving licence (Sarathi) | Photo 10-20 KB JPG at 420 x 525 px; signature 10-20 KB at 256 x 64 px |
| PAN card (Protean) | Photograph maximum 20 KB JPEG at 3.5 x 2.5 cm, 200 DPI |
| IBPS and SBI | 20 KB is the minimum, not the maximum — the photo window is 20-50 KB |
| BPSC signature | Less than 20 KB, 150-220 x 250-320 px |
| UP D.El.Ed. signature | 5-20 KB JPG at 3.5 x 1.5 cm |
| Practical pixel size | About 300 x 380 px is the largest crop that fits 20 KB with a readable face |
Source: Photo and Signature Scan & Upload Process (Sarathi, MoRTH) (undated PDF on the live Sarathi portal, read September 2026). checked on 2026-09-06. The PDF prints the signature width as '35cm' where 35 mm (1.4 inch) is meant — an internal typo in the official document.
The same number, two opposite jobs
20 KB is the most searched file size in Indian forms, and it means different things depending on the portal. For Sarathi driving licence uploads it is the top of a 10-20 KB window. For PAN applications through Protean it is a hard ceiling with no floor. For IBPS it is the floor of a 20-50 KB range, so a 12 KB file is rejected for being too small.
Why order of operations matters
At 20 KB a JPEG can store roughly 100,000 pixels of face before artefacts show. A 12-megapixel phone photo has a hundred times that. If you only drag a quality slider, the encoder spends its budget trying to preserve detail everywhere and fails everywhere. Resize to something like 300 x 380 px first and the same 20 KB suddenly looks clean.
Padding is a legitimate fix
When a portal sets a floor, a tight crop can land under it. The honest solution is to add data back — a slightly higher quality setting, or metadata padding if quality is already at maximum. FileKB shows you both the padded and unpadded file so you can choose, and the badge tells you which one you are downloading.
How it works
- Check whether your portal treats 20 KB as a ceiling or a floor — the two need opposite work.
- Crop to head and shoulders so no bytes are wasted on the background.
- Resize to about 300 x 380 px for a ceiling, or keep more pixels if 20 KB is a floor.
- Set the maximum to 20 KB and, if the portal has a floor, set the minimum too.
- Watch the match badge — padded means the file was topped up to clear the minimum.
- Download and check the face is still recognisable at 100% zoom before uploading.