The form wanted a square photo. Mine was a normal phone rectangle. I tried stretching it in a random app. My head became a balloon. The clerk did not say balloon. He said photo not as per spec. Same thing.
White pad on the sides is the boring fix. The picture stays looking like you. Empty white fills the square. That is what Image to Square does.
Do not stretch the face
Drop the photo. The tool takes the longer side, makes a square of that, paints white, sits your picture in the middle. Download square.jpg.
It does not crop the face for you. If you are a small person in a big room, you will be a small person in a big white square. Crop first on the phone so the face fills the rectangle. Then pad to square.
Stretching is what Paint does if you drag a corner wrong. Eyes go wide. I have seen it on a job portal. Do not.
Your file is not uploaded to our server. The photo stays in the browser. Close the tab after. Fine for a form face.
20 MB limit. A gallery photo is fine. If not, export a smaller jpg.
I do not claim this square is an official passport size. Passport and PSK have their own px and mm. This is for sites that said “square photo” or 1:1. Read the form for the px. After you have a square, you may still need Resize Image or Passport Photo Resize if they gave two numbers. We do not claim official PSK size as law.
White padding. The background becomes white on the short sides. If the form wanted a blue background, padding white may annoy them. Then you need a studio photo, not this tool. This tool is white pad, not a blue screen.
If your rectangle is already almost square, the white strips are thin. Fine. If it is a very wide landscape of three cousins, you get tall white above and below, and three cousins. Crop to one face first.
Crop, then pad, then size
Order I use:
Crop the face on the phone. Some hair, some shoulders, not the sofa.
Drop on Image to Square. Download.
If they want 200 x 200, resize width 200. Height will already match because it is square.
If they want 200 kb, then Compress Image around 70. Check File Size Checker.
If you pad after you stretched, the balloon stays. Start from the original rectangle. Not from the balloon file.
Some apps “make square” by chopping the chin. That is a crop to square. Our tool is pad to square. Chin stays. White appears. I prefer that for forms that reject chopped heads.
If they wanted a tight passport crop, you still crop. Pad is for the 1:1 requirement after you have a decent crop.
I had a girl, August, Instagram portrait, tall rectangle. Form 1:1. She stretched. Balloon. We went back to original, cropped, Image to Square, then 300 px. Looked like her. White bars on left and right because the crop was still a bit tall. Form accepted.
A boy cropped so tight the hair touched the edge. After pad, hair still near the edge, white thin. Also accepted. Forms vary. When they want space above the head, crop with space, then pad.
Phone, browsers, and what this is not
Chrome on phone works. Hold the phone. Drop from gallery. Download. Upload to the form from the same phone if that is the flow.
HEIC: save jpg first.
Grey button: drop a photo, under 20 MB, wait.
Do not email the photo to us.
FileOnDesk is not the board, not PSK. Square pad is a geometry trick.
If the form wanted rectangle on purpose, do not square it. Read. I squared a photo for a site that wanted 3:4. They rejected. We used resize with the px they wrote, no pad.
Password is not a photo problem.
If white looks dirty grey, the original had a grey wall and jpeg dirt. Take a new photo on a plainer wall, then crop, then square.
I keep the original rectangle. Next form may want rectangle again. Do not overwrite the gallery photo with the square. Download is a new file named square.jpg. Rename with the form name.
Night selfie, yellow light, then white pads. The pads are extra white, the face is yellow. Clerk may not love it. Daylight. Then square.
If you need stamp size on paper, that is print. This is pixels for a site. Different job.
Last one. A coaching form in August said square. Rectangle selfie. No balloon. Image to Square, white pad on the sides, then a small resize. Better than stretching your head like a balloon. That is the whole advice. I put it on a sticky for the intern.
I will tell you how the balloon happened the first time, because I did it myself. Paint, corner handle, I wanted 400 by 400. The photo was 400 by 600. I typed 400 and 400. Face went wide. I uploaded. My own staff ID looked like I sat too close to a spoon. Next day I padded instead. Same face, white on left and right. Clerk nodded.
If both sides get white, your crop was taller than wide. If top and bottom get white, your crop was a wide landscape. Either is a square at the end. The form usually only checks equal sides.
Some sites then compress the square again on their server. Start a little sharper than you think. Quality 70 after square is plenty. Do not go to 30 because you fear 200 kb. Square jpg of a cropped face is often already small.
Group photo in a rectangle, they wanted only you, square. Crop you first. Then pad. Do not pad the whole family and hope the clerk crops. He will not.
Udaipur hotel job form, August. Square, 200 kb, jpg. Rectangle selfie on a terrace. Crop, Image to Square, width 400, compress 70, 90 kb. White strips, face normal. That is the path I keep repeating because stretching is tempting and always looks silly.
If the form also wants a plain background, the white pads help. If they want only the face with no bars, crop closer to a square on the phone first so the pads are thin. Either way, do not pull the head like chewing gum.