Turn any photo into a PAN card photo that matches the Protean (NSDL) online form: 3.5 × 2.5 cm, 200 DPI, colour JPEG, under 20 KB.
No limits or paywall.
Use instantly, no account.
Only the optional AI background step uses remove.bg.
Clean, full-quality output.
No upload queue or waiting.
Works on phone and desktop.
Applying for a PAN card, or correcting one, means uploading a photo in a very specific format. The Protean (formerly NSDL) online form asks for a colour photograph of 3.5 × 2.5 cm, scanned at 200 DPI, saved as a JPEG of no more than 20 KB. A phone photo is about a hundred times too big, the wrong shape and the wrong resolution.
This free tool fixes all of that in one step. The PAN Card preset is already selected: frame your face, press Generate, and you get a 197 × 276 pixel JPEG at 200 DPI that stays under 20 KB. Everything runs in your browser; your photo is not uploaded unless you choose the optional AI background feature.
Before
Phone photo (JPEG)
1.2 MB
A 2687 × 3356 portrait: far too large for the 20 KB upload limit.
After
PAN photo (JPEG)
18.9–19.8 KB
197 × 276 px, 200 DPI written in the file, cropped to 3.5 × 2.5 cm proportions.
Measured in Chrome with a real portrait. The tool lowers JPEG quality just enough to stay under 20 KB, so the exact size varies a little from photo to photo.
Drop a clear, front-facing photo taken against a plain white wall. The PAN Card preset (3.5 × 2.5 cm, 200 DPI) is already selected.
The photo starts fitted to the frame. Zoom in with the slider and drag (or swipe on a phone) so your head and shoulders are centred, as on a passport photo.
Press Generate Single Photo. The tool makes a 197 × 276 px JPEG and reduces the quality just enough to stay under 20 KB.
Download the digital copy for the online form, or create a print sheet (4 × 6 in, A4 or Letter) for a paper application.
| Item | Size | Resolution | Format | Max file size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Photograph | 3.5 × 2.5 cm | 200 DPI | Colour JPEG | 20 KB |
| Signature | 2 × 4.5 cm | 200 DPI | JPEG | 10 KB |
| Paper form photo | 3.5 × 2.5 cm | Printed | Colour, white background | – |
Protean's instructions for online PAN applications with scanned documents list the photograph as 3.5 × 2.5 cm, colour, 200 DPI, JPEG, with a maximum size of 20 KB. The signature is 2 × 4.5 cm, 200 DPI, JPEG, maximum 10 KB. For paper applications, two recent colour photographs of 3.5 × 2.5 cm with a white background are affixed to the form.
Requirements can change, and different portals (Protean, UTIITSL, the e-filing portal) sometimes show slightly different upload limits. Always glance at the limits shown on the upload screen. A photo made with this preset meets the strictest common limit, 20 KB.
At 200 DPI, 3.5 × 2.5 cm is about 197 × 276 pixels. Even that small, a photo with a busy background measured 21.4 KB at the usual 95% JPEG quality, just over the limit. So the tool encodes the photo repeatedly, searching for the highest quality that still fits under 20 KB. With a real portrait the results were 18.9–19.8 KB: as sharp as the limit allows.
Plain backgrounds compress much better than busy ones. If the tool warns that the photo is still over 20 KB, use a plain white background and avoid zooming out so far that lots of background is included.
The PAN photo is small, so the face must be clear. Use the same rules as for a passport photo:
For online applications, download the digital copy and upload it on the photo step. For paper applications (Form 49A or the correction form), create a print sheet: 4 × 6 inch photo paper, A4 or Letter, with as many 3.5 × 2.5 cm copies as fit. Print at 100% scale (no "fit to page"), cut out two photos and affix them without stapling.
Your photo is personal data. Cropping, resizing, compressing and building print sheets all happen in your browser, so the photo stays on your device. The only exception is the optional AI background feature: if you turn it on, the photo is sent to the remove.bg service to separate you from the background. Leave it off if you took the photo against a white wall.
Most problems are visible before you upload. Check for these:
Upload a compliant photo on the Protean (NSDL) online form.
Update the photo on your PAN with the change request form.
Print 3.5 × 2.5 cm photos on a single sheet at home or a shop.
Make photos for parents or children from phone pictures.
Protean (NSDL) asks for a colour photograph of 3.5 × 2.5 cm. For online applications with scanned documents, the photo must be scanned at 200 DPI as a JPEG of at most 20 KB. At 200 DPI that is about 197 × 276 pixels, which is what this preset produces.
The photo is portrait: 2.5 cm wide and 3.5 cm tall, the shape of a small passport photo. The preset uses exactly these proportions.
Press Generate Single Photo with the PAN Card preset. The tool searches for the highest JPEG quality that still fits under 20 KB. In our tests the result was 18.9 to 19.8 KB. If a very detailed background pushes it over, the tool warns you; a plain white background solves that.
A plain white background, as Protean asks for on paper applications. Take the photo against a white wall. If yours is not plain, the optional AI background feature can replace it, but it sends your photo to the remove.bg service to do so.
Cropping, resizing, compression and print sheets all happen in your browser. Only the optional AI background feature uploads the photo, to remove.bg, and only if you turn it on.
Yes. Browsers save JPEGs as 72 DPI by default, so the tool writes 200 DPI into the file header. Some portals check this value.
This tool is for photos. For the 2 × 4.5 cm signature (max 10 KB), crop a scan of your signature and shrink it with Compress Image to 10KB.
Yes. After generating the photo, create a print sheet on 4 × 6 inch photo paper, A4 or Letter, print it at 100% scale and cut out two photos.
The 3.5 × 2.5 cm photo size is the standard PAN size, but upload limits differ between portals. If a portal allows more than 20 KB, this photo still qualifies; if it shows different dimensions, use the Custom option in the standard list.