RRB Photo and Signature Resizer, Converter and Compressor

What the Railway Recruitment Board is

The Railway Recruitment Board issues Centralised Employment Notices for Indian Railways, with a separate CEN for each post and sub-exam, covering Group D, Non-Technical Popular Categories, Junior Engineer, Technician, Ministerial and Paramedical categories. The same notice governs the photograph, signature, thumb impression and declaration, and it lists what will disqualify an application.

Railway recruitment publishes its rejection grounds explicitly, which makes the specification unusually clear to satisfy. A signature can be refused for a non-white background, non-black ink, block or capital letters instead of running handwriting, poor resolution, an incomplete or partly cut signature, uploading something that is not the signature at all, or placing the thumb impression in the signature box. Alongside the photograph and signature the board asks for a left thumb impression and a handwritten declaration on its own template, with the photograph on that template attested by a gazetted officer, so those are separate images with their own sizes and their own ceilings.

The RRB notification itself is on rrbapply.gov.in. Check the upload section of that document before generating files, since these requirements are revised between recruitment drives and the values stored in this tool follow the recorded specification.

This page sets out the numbers RRB actually asks for. It is not a general guide to cropping or to the tool interface, because those instructions do not change from one exam to the next and they are written up separately.

What the RRB form asks you to upload

4 images go into this form. That is the detail most candidates miss, because the photograph and signature are the obvious ones and the remaining uploads are easy to overlook until the portal rejects the submission. They are:

• A photograph at 200 x 230 px, no heavier than 50 KB and no lighter than 20 KB.
• A signature at 140 x 60 px, no heavier than 20 KB and no lighter than 10 KB.
• A left thumb impression at 240 x 240 px, up to 50 KB.
• A hand written declaration at 800 x 400 px, up to 100 KB.

The RRB numbers, and why they matter

RRB publishes its sizes in both units, which means the record is offering two ways to express the same kind of requirement. Pick the row that matches how your own advertisement is worded: centimetres when the notification states a physical frame, pixels when it states a resolution. They are alternatives published for different notifications, not a sequence to apply in turn.

The RRB table lists DPI values of 200 and 96 against what is otherwise the same frame. Both entries describe identical dimensions, so the decision is resolution quality rather than size. Take the higher value unless the notification names the lower one.

RRB runs tight on file weight. The photograph ceiling is 50 KB and the signature ceiling 20 KB, which leaves very little room for an uncropped phone photo taken straight from the camera. Crop tight around the subject before compressing, because the empty background around the edge is exactly what pushes a file over a limit this narrow.

The RRB record offers 3 photograph options and 3 signature options: 200 x 230 px; 3.5 x 4.5 cm. These come from different notifications and different recruitment streams rather than from one form, so there is no single right answer to which to use. Take the size from the advertisement you are actually applying under, and if it names a size that is not listed here, enter it by hand in the width and height fields.

Several RRB presets are labelled preferred in the stored specification, including 200 x 230 px for the photo and 140 x 60 px for the signature and 240 x 240 px for the document. The label signals what the board expects to see most often across its notifications. It is a preference rather than a restriction, but where the notification leaves the choice open the preferred row is the safer pick.

The RRB form asks for 8 document images beyond the photograph and signature: document at 240 x 240 px, up to 50 KB; document at 800 x 400 px, up to 100 KB; document at 240 x 240 px, up to 50 KB; document at 800 x 400 px, up to 100 KB; document at 3 x 3 cm, up to 50 KB; document at 10 x 5 cm, up to 100 KB; document at 3 x 3 cm, up to 50 KB; document at 10 x 5 cm, up to 100 KB. Each is validated separately, so a correct portrait does not offset a document that falls outside its own specification. A thumb impression in particular has to be made on paper and cropped to its own frame, not lifted from the portrait.

If the RRB application refuses your file

• A RRB rejection usually comes down to one of two things. Either the file is over 50 KB because the crop left too much empty background, or the photo itself has a non plain background, a tilt, or a filter. Fix the weight first since it is measurable, then the photograph.
• For the RRB signature, keep the crop tight around the ink. The 140 x 60 px frame is small, so every extra millimetre of empty paper is weight you do not have, and the 20 KB ceiling does not leave room for it.
• Repeating an identical submission is the most common wasted step here. Compare the values above against the live notification, and if the notification has moved, change one value at a time rather than re-running the whole form.

Frequently Asked Questions

The mechanics of the crop step, the face mask overlay, and the compression trade-off are identical across all of these tools, so they have their own guide instead of a section on every page. Open the full photo and signature guide.