A Mini-Tutorial on How to Create and Upload Photograph for Residency Application

Step 1: Get a picture of yourself:

a. The best way to have it is to have a Digital camera self-shoot your picture with a white / plain color wall / curtain behind you and a soft light falling on your face. Most digital cameras will have automatic photo option and I prefer that since there will be no problem of a hand-shake that way. Try both - with flash and without flash, coz' often you will be surprised at the beauty of a non-flash picture
b. When you take that picture, make sure you are in a professional attire- Well, at least the waist upwards ;-)
c. Of course, you may already have a digital picture of yourself and you can crop out your face from that one too, as explained below

Step 2: Editing the image to meet ERAS standards:

Use an image editor to get those specification. I will explain how this is done using a free, online image editor called Pixenate.com - its pretty easy and fast on their site.

I suppose most digital cameras will save pictures in the JPEG format, in any case, changing the format is pretty easy by using a free online site called Zamzar.com

The basic idea is to 'crop' a square from your picture of the face area and then shrink that square to a 300X300 pixel size, using the 'resize' function. Here are the steps:

1. Goto http://pixenate.com/ -

2. Click on 'Choose your image to edit" on the left, browse to the picture file on your screen and click on the 'Upload this image' button

3. Next, upload the picture, once uploaded, it will show on the screen

4. The first thing to do is use the 'Crop' function - don't worry about the size at this time. Click on the Crop Button on the left and then click your mouse on the photo and drag it to select a square area covering your face, a little space beyond the ears and the just the upper shoulders. Select a roughly square area first, then goto the left where you see the size of the area selected in pixels - Change either the height or the width to match the other to make the selection a square - and click back on the image (Do not hit Apply yet). You will see that the area is now a square but has moved to the left, so drag it back to the place to include your face, ears and just a bit of shoulders. Once selected and satisfied, click on 'apply' and give it some time to update.

5. Now is the simple part, choose Resize, type in 300 in both height and width and hit apply - Bingo, thats the image you want. If you think the image is a little dark, use the Enhance button to brighten it

6. Once you are totally happy, right click on the image and select "Save Image" to save it to your computer.


Step 3: Uploading the photo to ERAS:

Once you have the picture, the next step is to upload it to ERAS yourself. Here are the steps:

1. Log on to OASIS
2. Next, click on "Eras Support Services" link on the left menu
3. Next, Click on "Upload Photograph" link on the left Menu - scroll to the bottom to browse and upload

If it does not upload or you see some error, make sure you are using Internet Explorer - often the upload shows a problem with Firefox and other browsers




Search keywords to this blog post:

- How to upload photographs to ERAS for residency application

ERAS Now Accepts Digital Photographs of Candidates

Yeah - ERAS gets more digital for the 2008 Match and thank god for that for 2 main reasons:

1. Getting a passport sized photograph in the US is unusually expensive

2. Pre-scanned will hopefully save time and probably even result in documents transmitted earlier for that candidate as opposed to those who send in paper shots


Here are the official requirements for a Digital passport-sized picture (as published by ECFMG):


- It must be in the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) format.
- It must have a resolution of 300 pixels wide by 300 pixels high OR 240 pixels wide by 320 pixels high, and a color depth of 24-bit color.
- The source of the digital photograph should be either a digital camera or a print photograph scanned into a digital format.
- If a print photograph is scanned, it must be scanned at a resolution of 150 dots per inch (dpi) and with a color depth of 24-bit color.
- The maximum image size accepted will be 300,000 bytes (300 Kb)

Most Digital cameras will already have the required color depth and we don't have to worry on that one, however the candidates who will be scanning their paper pics will need to make sure the scanner is set to capture that color depth or more.


I am sure most of you already know how to achieve those specification - for those unsure, i am writing a post on how to create and upload your photograph for the Residency Application





Search keywords to this post:

- Photo for residency application
- What are the criteria for a passport sized picture for ERAS
- dimensions of photograph for ERAS application