Drop your photo and get a JPEG inside the 10–200 KB window from the ICAR AIEEA (PG) / AICE Ph.D. information bulletins — padded up to the 10 KB floor if your file is too light, never pushed below it. The signature (10–30 KB — the range that satisfies both figures the bulletin prints), the thumb impression and the 50–300 KB UDID certificate PDF fit here too. Nothing is uploaded; everything runs in your browser.
ICAR AIEEA (PG) is NTA’s entrance exam for postgraduate admission in the agricultural universities, and AICE JRF/SRF (Ph.D.) is its doctoral sibling — one application portal, and for the current cycle two Information Bulletins with identical upload rules. Both ask for scanned images in JPG/JPEG format: a recent colour photograph between 10 KB and 200 KB in which the face occupies 80% of the image, full face without mask, both ears clearly visible, against a white background — and a clearly legible signature. Both windows have floors: a file that compresses below the minimum is as invalid as one over the cap. This page is preset for the photo — drop it, and the result lands inside the window, padded up to the 10 KB floor with spec-valid JPEG data if your photo is too light, never pushed below it.
Here is the trap. The bulletin’s main upload instructions (Step-2, the section that describes each image) say the signature file must be between 10 kb to 30 kb. Twenty pages later, the same bulletin’s “Three Steps to Complete the Application Process” box says 4 kb – 30 kb. Both figures are in the current PDF — and the same pair appears in the AICE Ph.D. bulletin too. Every guide we checked copies the Steps box: “4 KB to 30 KB” is what the admissions portals, coaching sites and exam-tool pages all sell, and none of them mentions the 10 KB floor in the instruction section at all. Follow them and a 5 KB signature file passes every guide — and under-floors the bulletin’s primary spec. The safe answer costs nothing: 10–30 KB satisfies every reading. For the signature pass here, type 11-29kb into Target, sign on white paper, and let the signature cleanup tool whiten grey scans and trim to the ink first if yours needs it.
The Steps box also lists a third upload the main instructions never mention: the candidate’s thumb impression, between 3 kb and 30 kb, JPG. Whether the form asks for it can vary by cycle — but if you are applying, have one ready rather than discovering it mid-form: a stamped thumb impression on white paper, scanned, fitted with 11-29kb as the Target (comfortably inside every reading of both windows this bulletin prints).
The bulletins are unusually current about photo fraud: candidates are advised not to upload morphed, AI-generated, filtered or heavily edited photographs — such applications may be rejected during verification. Use a plain, recent photo. Separately, the form captures a live photograph while you fill it: switch on your webcam, or scan the on-screen QR code to shoot with your phone if the computer has no camera. The bulletin’s rules for that capture: light-coloured background, proper lighting, clear face visibility including ears, no caps, goggles, masks or tinted glasses, face occupying the majority of the frame — and the live photograph may be used for verification during the examination and admission process, so treat it as seriously as the upload.
Neither bulletin gives pixel or centimetre dimensions for the uploads — file type and kilobytes are the requirement. If you want a concrete shape, the Indian passport-photo proportion works: type 350x450 into Exact size — a suggestion, not an ICAR/NTA rule. Guides quoting mandatory pixels for AIEEA are quoting something the bulletin doesn’t say.
Two more windows hide in the instruction section. Candidates who verify identity by a method other than Aadhaar or DigiLocker upload a scanned ID proof in JPG/JPEG between 10 KB and 200 KB — same window as the photo, so this page’s preset fits it as-is. PwD/PwBD candidates upload the Disability/UDID certificate as a PDF between 50 KB and 300 KB: drop the page images here, choose PDF as the output format (tick Combine into one PDF for a multi-page certificate), set Target to 50-300kb, and the finished PDF lands inside the window. An oversized scan-app PDF re-fits locally with the PDF compressor. Everything else stays off the form: the bulletin’s own note says there is no provision to upload any certificate or marksheet with the application — educational documents are checked later, not uploaded.
The carry list is short and specific: the printed admit card with the filled Self Declaration, a simple transparent ballpoint pen, one authorized original photo ID — and two additional prints of the same photograph you uploaded, to be pasted on the attendance sheet in the examination hall. (Its NTA siblings ask for one; AIEEA asks for two.) Keep a few passport-size prints of the upload with your admit card so what you paste matches what NTA has on file.
From the AIEEA (PG) 2026-27 bulletin’s own table and the public notices beside it: applications ran 8 May to 7 June 2026, extended to 10 June by a notice of 7 June; correction window 9–10 June; the 120-minute CBT was held 4 July 2026 (fee ₹1300 general). That cycle is done — the next bulletins publish at exams.nta.nic.in/ICAR/, and those PDFs plus the form’s own error messages win over any guide, this page included. A photo tied to your university admission doesn’t need to pass through a resizer’s server: PixFit runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded, and the re-encode strips EXIF metadata (including GPS) as a side effect. Applying to the other NTA gates too? CSIR NET and CUET PG have their own (moving) windows, GATE its generous ones, and the full verified table covers the rest.
Spec source: the Information Bulletins for ICAR AIEEA (PG) 2026-27 and AICE JRF/SRF (Ph.D.) 2026-27, fetched from NTA’s own CDN as linked from exams.nta.nic.in/ICAR/, read August 2026 (the Ph.D. bulletin is a scanned PDF; its pages were OCR’d and the numbers matched the PG bulletin exactly). If the current form’s upload screen states different numbers, believe the screen over this page.