Add a photo or signature you have already prepared and see whether it meets the exam’s requirements, one criterion at a time. Nothing is uploaded and your file is not changed.
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Why check before you upload
Most rejections are not mysterious. A file is a few kilobytes over the ceiling, or it is a PNG where the portal wants a JPEG, or it is an iPhone HEIC that was renamed to .jpg and never actually converted. All of those are visible in the file itself before you go anywhere near the application form, and all of them are quicker to find here than to discover from an error message at the end of a long form.
The reason to check rather than simply resize is that resizing a file that is already correct can only make it worse. Every JPEG save loses a little detail, so if the photograph a studio gave you already lands inside the window there is nothing to gain by re-encoding it. This tells you which situation you are in.
What is checked, and what cannot be
Four things are measured, and each is reported against what the notification asks for:
Format. Read from the file’s own signature bytes rather than its name, because renaming a HEIC to .jpg changes nothing about its contents. This is the check that catches the most confusing rejections, since the file looks like a photo everywhere except the portal.
File size. Against both the floor and the ceiling. Portals disagree on whether a kilobyte is 1000 or 1024 bytes, so the window used here is the overlap of both readings and a file that passes will pass either validator.
Dimensions. Exactly as the body states them, which differs more than you would expect: some give one fixed size, some a window that applies to both sides, some independent bounds per side, and some only a print size in centimetres.
Shape. Kept separate from dimensions, because a file can be inside every pixel bound and still be the wrong proportion. Where an exam states the allowed ratio, as GATE does, being outside it is a failure. Where the ratio is only implied by a print size, a small deviation is flagged as worth knowing rather than called a rejection.
What cannot be checked is the picture. No tool can see whether the background is plain, the face is unobscured, the light is even, or the photograph was taken this year rather than five years ago, and every one of those is a documented reason for refusal. A pass here means the file is technically correct, which is necessary and not sufficient.
One photo, several exams
Candidates rarely apply to a single exam in a season, and the requirements almost never match: the same face has to arrive as 200 by 230 pixels for one body and somewhere between 200 and 530 pixels wide for another. Add your file once and change the exam in the selector, and it is re-checked against the new rule straight away, so you can see at a glance which applications you already have a usable file for.
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Common questions
How is this different from the resizer?
The resizer makes a new file that meets the requirement. The checker leaves your file alone and tells you whether the one you already have will be accepted. If you were given a photo by a studio, or you resized it somewhere else, checking first is quicker than redoing the work.
Is my photo uploaded anywhere?
No. The check runs inside your browser: it reads the first 32 bytes to identify the format, decodes the image once to measure it, and compares those numbers against the requirement. Nothing is sent to a server, and you can confirm that by opening your browser tools and watching the network while you use it.
It says my file passes. Can I be certain it will be accepted?
It confirms the file meets every measurable requirement the notification states: format, file size, pixel dimensions and proportions. What no tool can check is the content, so a photograph that is correctly sized but taken in poor light, with a covered face, or without the required white background can still be refused by the person reviewing it.
Why does it warn about rotation?
Photos from phones often carry an EXIF flag telling viewers to turn the image a quarter turn, so a file that measures 200 by 230 pixels displays as 230 by 200. Some upload forms honour that flag and some ignore it, which is how a correctly sized photo ends up sideways on an admit card. Re-saving through the resizer writes the rotation into the pixels so there is nothing left to interpret.
Can I check one photo against several exams?
Yes. Add the file once, then change the exam in the selector and the same file is re-checked against the new requirement immediately. This is useful when you are applying to more than one exam in a season, since the requirements rarely match.
What does “no pixel size stated” mean?
Some bodies give a size in centimetres, or give none at all, and state only a file size limit. Where that is the case the checker reports your dimensions without judging them, because failing your file against a pixel figure we worked out ourselves rather than one the notification quoted would be inventing a rule.