PAN Card Photo & Signature Resizer

The exact NSDL PAN photo and signature specs

The Protean (formerly NSDL) e-Gov PAN form and UTIITSL both scan the photo and signature at 200 DPI and expect JPEG. These are the numbers the portal checks:

Field	Physical size	Pixels (200 DPI)	File size	Format
Photograph	3.5 cm × 2.5 cm	213 × 276 px	20–50 KB	JPEG
Signature	2 cm × 4.5 cm	354 × 157 px	10–50 KB	JPEG

The photo is portrait (taller than wide) and the signature is landscape (wider than tall). Getting the orientation right matters as much as the pixel count: a landscape photo or a portrait signature fails the check even when the file size is fine. Both tools above are pre-set to the correct orientation, so you only need to drop the file in.

A note on the width: a strict 2.5 cm at 200 DPI works out to about 197 px, but the pixel value Protean’s own guide prints for the photo is 213 px wide. Both are within the portal’s tolerance. This tool uses the published 213×276, so what you upload matches the number the portal documents.

Why the portal rejects a photo or signature

Almost every rejection comes down to one of four things:

• Wrong dimensions. The form wants exact pixels. A phone photo is thousands of pixels wide, so it is refused until resized. These tools fix that automatically.
• Over the file-size cap. A sharp photo straight from a camera is several megabytes. The form caps the photo and signature at 50 KB. Both tools bring the file under the cap while keeping it as clear as possible.
• Wrong format. The portal wants JPEG. PNG or HEIC files are rejected. Both tools output JPG by default.
• Wrong orientation or a cropped face. The photo must be portrait with the full face centred; the signature must be landscape on a plain white background. Centre your face before uploading, since the tool crops from the middle.

You do not need to hit an exact number by hand. Drop the file in and the tool reports the final pixels and KB, so you can confirm it matches the table before you upload.

Getting a clean signature image

The signature trips people up more than the photo. A few things make it pass cleanly:

• Sign in dark ink on plain white paper. Black or dark blue on white gives the contrast the portal wants.
• Fill the width. Sign at a normal size, then photograph or scan just the signature. The landscape 4.5 cm frame suits a signature that runs left to right.
• Even light, no shadow. If you photograph it with a phone, hold the phone flat above the paper in daylight so there is no grey shadow across the page.

Drop that image into the signature tool and it crops to 354×157 and fits it under the limit. If your signature sits off to one side of the paper, crop roughly around it first so the centre crop lands on the ink.

Pixels and kilobytes, handled together

Most resizers do one job: they change the pixels, then leave you to shrink the file with a second tool. That two-step dance is where people get stuck, because resizing to the right pixels does not guarantee the file lands under 50 KB. These tools do both in one pass: crop to the exact PAN dimensions, then search the JPEG quality down until the file fits the cap, keeping the sharpest version that does. One drop, one download, both requirements met.

If you would rather size a photo to a different portal's pixels, the resize-by-pixels tool takes any width and height, and the reduce-size-in-KB tool hits any exact KB target. For a US or visa passport photo, the passport photo resizer is pre-set to 2×2 inch (600×600).