30 KB photo size — Kerala PSC's 150 x 200 px profile picture with your name printed on it
The Kerala PSC profile photo is the one 30 KB rule with a twist: the file must carry your name and the date the photo was taken, printed inside the image itself.
JPG, PNG, WebP · up to 50 files at once · nothing is uploaded
30 KB photo specification
| Requirement | Value |
|---|---|
| Kerala PSC one-time registration | JPG, 150 px wide x 200 px high, file size not exceeding 30 KB |
| Caption inside the photo | Candidate's name and the date the photograph was taken, printed at the bottom of the image |
| Photo age | Taken on or after 31 December 2010; a registered photo stays valid for ten years from the date printed on it |
| Framing | Colour or black-and-white, white or light background, face central and clearly visible |
| Same 30 KB figure for signatures | pariksha.nic.in OTR (up to 30 KB), UGC NET (4-30 KB) and CTET (3-30 KB) use 30 KB as the signature ceiling — see the 30 KB signature page |
| Practical result | At 150 x 200 px a well-lit JPEG lands at 12-20 KB, so the limit is rarely the hard part |
| Common failure | Caption text typed too small to read, or a name that does not match the registration record |
Source: Kerala Public Service Commission — General Conditions (Notification), paragraph 11(a) on photographs (current General Conditions PDF on keralapsc.gov.in, read September 2026). checked on 2026-09-20. The General Conditions give pixels only (150 x 200); the Thulasi portal's upload screen does not add a centimetre size.
The rule, exactly as the Commission prints it
Paragraph 11(a) of the Kerala PSC General Conditions is unusually precise. The profile photograph uploaded during one-time registration must be a JPG of 200 pixels height and 150 pixels width with a file size not exceeding 30 KB, taken on or after 31 December 2010, with the candidate's name and the date the photo was taken printed at the bottom. It can be colour or black-and-white, must have a white or light background, and the face must be central and clearly visible. Once registered, the photograph stays valid for ten years counted from the printed date.
Three of those five requirements are about content, not bytes, and that is where most rejections happen. A 30 KB budget for a 150 x 200 px image is roomy — a properly cropped face lands at 12-20 KB without effort — but a missing caption or an unreadable date fails the profile no matter how neat the file is.
Getting the caption right
The caption has to be part of the image. Studios in Kerala routinely print the name and date on a strip below the face; the photo-name-dob tool does the same for a photo you already have, and the name-and-date guide explains what the strip should look like. Use the name exactly as it appears on your registration and the date the photo was taken, not the date you uploaded it. Then crop and resize to 150 x 200 so the strip stays inside the frame — a caption sliced off at the bottom is the single most common reason a Thulasi profile photo is bounced.
Where 30 KB appears elsewhere
Outside Kerala, thirty kilobytes is mainly a signature figure: the pariksha.nic.in one-time registration caps the signature at 30 KB, UGC NET asks for 4-30 KB and CTET for 3-30 KB. Those are covered on the 30 KB signature page. For photographs, the nearest neighbours are the 20 KB ceiling used by PAN and older state portals and the 50 KB banking window; if your form prints a number other than 30, one of those pages is the right one.
How it works
- Take a head-and-shoulders photo against a white or light wall, looking straight at the camera.
- Add a caption strip with your name (as registered) and the date the photo was taken.
- Crop to a 3:4 portrait so the caption sits inside the frame, not cut off.
- Resize to 150 x 200 px — the preset already has these dimensions and a 30 KB maximum.
- Zoom to 100% and make sure the caption is legible and the face is central.
- Download as JPG and upload to your Thulasi profile; keep the file for the ten-year validity.