How to get a photo under 50 KB for an online form without ruining it

AZ Tech Era Tools — Sat, 14 Nov 2026 12:54:59 +0000

Many government and exam portals reject photos above 50 KB, while a phone photo is usually 2 to 5 MB. Here is a simple order of steps that keeps faces readable.

1. Crop first

Crop to the aspect ratio the form asks for. Extra background wastes bytes.

2. Resize the pixel dimensions

For most form photos something like 200 x 230 pixels is enough. Always check the exact numbers in the instructions, they differ per portal.

3. Compress last

Lower the JPG quality slowly until the file is just under 50 KB. Jumping straight to heavy compression on a huge photo gives blocky faces.

4. Still too big?

Reduce the dimensions a little more instead of lowering quality further, then check the preview before uploading.

Doing it in the browser

We built a free tool for this. It runs fully in your browser, so the photo is not uploaded anywhere:

https://pixelkaro.com/compress-image-20kb-to-50kb

Same idea for signatures: https://pixelkaro.com/signature-resizer

Disclosure: I work on PixelKaro.

5 reasons your JSON fails to parse (and how to fix each one)

AZ Tech Era Tools — Sat, 14 Nov 2026 01:50:43 +0000

If a parser throws Unexpected token, the cause is almost always one of five things.

1. Trailing comma

JSON does not allow a comma after the last item, even though JavaScript does.

{ "name": "Ana", "age": 30, }

Remove the last comma.

2. Single quotes

Keys and strings must use double quotes. {'name': 'Ana'} is a JavaScript object, not valid JSON.

3. Unquoted keys

{name: "Ana"} fails. Every key needs double quotes.

4. Comments

Standard JSON has no comment syntax. Remove // and /* */ lines before parsing.

5. Invisible characters at the start

A BOM or a pasted line number can break the first token. If the error points to position 0 and the file looks fine, check for this.

Finding the exact spot

Paste the data into a formatter that reports the line and column of the error, then fix that one place and re-check. If the data comes from a log or a Python print, a repair step that fixes quotes and trailing commas saves a lot of manual editing.

We built a free formatter and a repair tool for this. Both run in your browser, so your data is not uploaded:

Formatter: https://snipferry.com/json/formatter
Repair: https://snipferry.com/json/repair

Disclosure: I work on SnipFerry.

DEV Community: AZ Tech Era Tools