Photographing a signature or document so upload forms accept it

Start with the right paper and pen

Follow the notice literally. UPSC, for example, asks for black ink on plain white paper and lists lined or coloured paper as a rejection cause. Where a notice says less, those choices still give the clearest result.

• Use plain white paper with no lines, grid or print showing through.
• Use a dark pen that writes evenly; skipped strokes look like a poor scan.
• Sign at your normal size. SSC warns that miniature signatures can be rejected.
• Leave space around the writing so you can crop without cutting strokes. Where several signatures go in one image, as UPSC's three do, leave a gap between each.
• For a handwritten declaration, copy the exact wording the notice gives, in your own handwriting.

Light and angle

Use even light, such as a window to one side; a lamp straight above throws your phone's shadow on the page. The guide on scanning documents to PDF with a phone has more on light and glare.

Hold the phone parallel to the paper, directly above it, and tap the writing to focus.

Using a scanning app instead

Built-in scanners straighten the page for you. In iPhone Notes, tap the Attachment button, then Scan Documents, drag the corners to fit and tap Keep Scan. In the Google Drive app on Android, tap the camera icon, then use Crop and Rotate and Filter, which can switch to greyscale. Drive can save as .pdf or .jpg; forms usually want JPG for a signature.

Crop tightly and save as JPG

At a small pixel size, empty margin makes the writing smaller. Crop close around a signature or thumb impression, leaving a thin border; crop a document to the page edges.

Most notices ask for JPG or JPEG. If your iPhone saved HEIC, the Photo and signature resizer reads it directly and saves a JPG. Its rotate left and rotate right buttons fix a sideways photo.

Make the paper white

Photographed white paper often comes out light grey or tinted, which looks dull at small sizes and can hide faint strokes.

In the Photo and signature resizer, Make the paper white (for scanned or photographed paper) is ticked by itself when you choose a signature, thumb impression or declaration preset; leave it on. The tool then fits the file to the preset's pixel size and KB range, or to Custom: my own pixels and KB range if your form isn't listed.

Check at 100% zoom before uploading

View the finished file at actual size, not fitted to the screen. UPSC asks for signatures that are clear, sharp, well lit and properly oriented; a good test for any form.

• Every stroke is unbroken and readable, with no blur from movement.
• The background is plain white, with no shadows, lines or fingers at the edges.
• The image is the right way up, and nothing is cut off.
• The pixel size and file size match the notice.