Compress an image to 300 KB
Three steps. The algorithm does the searching; you just state the limit.
Upload your image
Drop a JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, AVIF, or GIF onto Sukat’s drop zone. iPhone HEIC works directly — useful because most UPSC and visa candidates shoot on phones.
Set 300 KB as the limit
Type 300 in the Maximum File Size field and pick KB. Choose JPEG for UPSC and embassy portals (they explicitly require JPG); WebP for Shopify or Substack.
Convert and download
Click Convert & Download. Sukat binary-searches for the highest quality that fits under 300 KB and saves the file locally — typically at quality 85–90 with original dimensions intact.
When a 300 KB image matters
300 KB is the ceiling Indian government portals and most embassy visa systems converge on — large enough to preserve real facial and product detail, tight enough to enforce.
- UPSC mains photo uploads. The civil services mains application accepts candidate photos up to 300 KB. Many serious candidates aim for the upper end (250–300 KB) so the photo retains facial detail through the portal’s downscaling.
- Embassy and consulate visa portals. US DS-160, the smaller end of Schengen submissions, UK visa centres, Canadian IRCC supporting documents — 300 KB is the common cap for the candidate photograph.
- Shopify product hero images. 300 KB sits at the sweet spot where a 1500–1800 px product hero loads fast on mobile and still survives pinch-zoom on retina displays.
- KYC document scans. PAN, Aadhaar, and driver’s licence scans cap at 300 KB on many Indian banking and fintech portals. Tight enough to discourage huge phone-camera scans, loose enough that the text stays readable.
- Substack and newsletter heros. Substack’s post-header rendering looks crisp at 300 KB without bloating the email payload.
- Blog hero images with real detail. When 200 KB visibly softens busy backgrounds and 500 KB is heavier than the page-speed budget allows, 300 KB is the middle ground.
Built around an exact 300 KB ceiling
Government portals are unforgiving. Overshoot by 12 KB and the upload widget bounces you.
Hits 300 KB, not “around” 300 KB
UPSC and embassy upload widgets enforce hard ceilings with no useful error message. A quality slider that gets you to “roughly 290” some days and 312 KB on others is unworkable. Sukat takes the constraint directly — 300 KB, find the highest quality — and binary-searches the quality scale until it converges, usually in seven re-encodes.
Dimensions stay full
300 KB is generous enough that most 1500–1800 pixel photos compress with no dimension change at all. Sukat reduces quality first, then dimensions only as a last resort. For a typical UPSC 300x400 photo or a Shopify 1600 px product shot, the output keeps original dimensions at quality 85–90 — visually indistinguishable from the source.
WebP gap still useful at this size
Even at 300 KB the WebP-vs-JPEG gap is meaningful: WebP typically delivers 25–30% sharper output for the same byte budget. For Shopify, Substack, and blog use cases pick WebP. For UPSC and embassy uploads, stick with JPEG because the portals explicitly require it.
HEIC-aware
UPSC candidates and visa applicants overwhelmingly shoot photos on iPhones, which produce HEIC. Sukat decodes HEIC directly — no separate convert-to-JPG step. Most online compressors fail silently on HEIC input or strip the EXIF orientation, rotating faces sideways.
Privacy by default
UPSC photos and KYC scans are the kind of files you shouldn’t be uploading to a random server. Sukat runs entirely in your browser via the Canvas API. Your images never leave the device. Verify by switching to airplane mode after the page loads.