🛂 Passport Size Photo — 3.5 × 4.5 cm

About the 3.5 × 4.5 cm Passport Photo Size

Ask any Indian exam candidate for a "passport size photo" and this is the size they mean: 3.5 cm × 4.5 cm — the standard for SSC, UPSC and most Indian exam and ID forms. Confusion starts when forms, studios and websites describe the same photo differently: in centimetres, millimetres, inches or pixels. This page settles all four, and the resizer above converts your photo to the exact size forms expect.

3.5 x 4.5 cm in Pixels: The Maths

The conversion never changes: centimetres ÷ 2.54 gives inches; multiply by the DPI. So 3.5 cm ÷ 2.54 = 1.378 inches × 300 = 413 pixels, and 4.5 cm ÷ 2.54 = 1.772 inches × 300 = 531 pixels. The 300 DPI figure matters because that is print resolution — and the pixel size exam portals have standardised on.

Where the 3.5 × 4.5 cm Size Is Used

This is the working photo size for most Indian government applications: SSC exams, UPSC forms, state PSC and police recruitment, bank exams and university admissions use it — though each form sets its own KB window on top, so always check your current notification, because specifications change. Written as 35 × 45 mm, the same size is also the standard ID and visa photo size in much of Europe. Need a signature for the same form? Use the Signature Resizer.

Not the Same as 2 × 2 Inch

The other size you will meet is 2 × 2 inch (51 × 51 mm, 600 × 600 pixels at 300 DPI) — a square format used for US visas and the Indian passport booklet photograph. Do not substitute one for the other: a square crop on a 3.5 × 4.5 form cuts the head or stretches the face. For a different pixel size, set it exactly with our Image Resizer.

What This Resizer Produces

The resizer above outputs exactly 413 × 531 pixels as a JPG, compressed into the 20KB – 100KB window most online forms accept, aiming near the middle so the file is neither rejected nor degraded by over-compression. If your form wants a tighter window — SSC commonly asks for 20KB–50KB — run the output through Compress Image to KB or a preset page like Compress Image to 50KB.

How to Resize a Phone Photo to 3.5 × 4.5 cm

1. Start with a clean photo

   Plain light background, daylight, face large in the frame, no cap or sunglasses.

2. Upload your image

   Click the upload button and pick the photo from your phone or computer.

3. Resize & compress

   Press Resize & Compress — the output is exactly 413 × 531 pixels in a typical form window.

4. Check the preview

   Confirm the face is sharp and unstretched — the 7:9 crop should look natural.

5. Download and use

   Upload the JPG to your form, or keep it as your master file for printing at 3.5 × 4.5 cm.

Print vs Online: What Actually Matters

For printing, a 413 × 531 file prints crisply at exactly 3.5 × 4.5 cm (300 DPI), but looks soft stretched onto a larger sheet. For online forms, portals ignore DPI metadata almost entirely — they check pixel dimensions, JPG format and the KB window. So prepare one honest 413 × 531 master, compress a copy to your form's KB window, and never upscale a small image to "make" pixels that were never captured.

Common 3.5 × 4.5 cm Photo Mistakes

• Mixing up cm, mm and inches — 3.5 × 4.5 cm = 35 × 45 mm, not 3.5 × 4.5 inches.
• Uploading a 2 × 2 inch square — wrong aspect ratio for exam forms; the face gets cropped or stretched.
• Trusting DPI labels instead of pixels — online portals read pixels and KB, not the DPI tag.
• Stretching to fit — always crop to the 7:9 ratio, never distort the face.
• Ignoring the KB window — right dimensions with the wrong file size still get rejected.
• Upscaling a tiny image — a blurry 100-pixel photo enlarged to 413 × 531 is still blurry.