Compress Photo for GATE Application | MiniPx — Free, Fast & Private
Your file size is almost certainly fine. GATE’s photograph band runs from 5 KB all the way to 600 KB, which is wide enough that a phone photo scaled to the right dimensions lands inside it without any effort. Uploads get rejected for other reasons — and because a rejected GATE application does not get its fee refunded, they are worth understanding before you upload.
The organising institute publishes the rules on the GATE site each cycle (IIT Guwahati for GATE 2026). Both files are JPEG/JPG:
- Photograph — 5 KB to 600 KB, minimum 200 × 260 px, maximum 530 × 690 px, aspect ratio between 0.66 and 0.89, and the face must cover 60–70% of the frame after cropping.
- Signature — 3 KB to 300 KB, minimum 250 × 80 px, maximum 580 × 180 px, height : width ratio of 1 : R where R is between 2.75 and 3.75, with the signature covering 70–80% of the image.
The aspect ratio window, in plain numbers
Aspect ratio here means width divided by height. GATE accepts 0.66 to 0.89. Worth seeing what that rules out:
- A standard 3.5 × 4.5 cm passport crop is 0.78 — comfortably inside.
- Both of GATE’s own bounds, 200 × 260 and 530 × 690, work out to 0.77. They are the same shape at two sizes.
- A square crop is 1.00 — rejected.
- A landscape phone photo is 1.33 or wider — rejected, and no amount of compression changes that.
So crop before you compress. Compression changes bytes; it never changes shape. Aim for a portrait crop close to 0.77 and both the ratio rule and the pixel bounds fall into place together.
The signature ratio is stricter than it looks
1 : R with R between 2.75 and 3.75 means the signature image must be between 2.75 and 3.75 times wider than it is tall. GATE also tells you how to produce one: sign inside a rectangular box 7 cm wide by 2 cm tall, drawn on A4 paper, in black or dark blue ink. That box is a ratio of 3.5 — deliberately mid-window.
Scan it, crop to the box, and you satisfy the ratio by construction. Then check the pixel bounds: at least 250 × 80, at most 580 × 180. A signature scanned at 300 DPI from a 7 cm box is about 827 px wide — over the maximum, so it needs scaling down, not just compressing.
Why your GATE photo was rejected
Glare on your spectacles. Called out explicitly: if you wear glasses and the flash reflects off them, the photo is unacceptable, and if the glare cannot be avoided you are told to remove the spectacles entirely.
Background that is not plain white, or has another person or object in it.
Face too small in the frame. The 60–70% coverage rule is measured after cropping. A full-length shot scaled down does not satisfy it.
Shadow across the face, or a head covering that hides the chin, forehead, or the edges of the face. Coverings are allowed for religious reasons, but those features must still be visible.
None of these are compression problems, which is exactly why they catch people who assumed hitting the file size meant they were done. The same photograph appears on your admit card and score card, so it is worth getting right once.
MiniPx runs entirely in your browser — your photograph and signature are never uploaded to a server, and the exact output size is shown before you download.
Aspect ratio trips people up well beyond exam portals; the ratios worth memorising lists where each one is enforced.