Trying to resize that Q-Net photo took way longer than it should have

Staring at the Q-Net upload requirements

I sat down yesterday thinking I could just quickly upload my profile photo to the Q-Net website for a certification application. It sounded simple enough in my head—just log in, attach the file, and be done with it. But then the red text popped up on the screen, listing all these specific constraints. It needed to be exactly 90 pixels by 120 pixels, in JPG format, and somehow under 200KB. Why does a certification site from the government require such tiny, specific dimensions in the year 2024? I ended up staring at the monitor for a good twenty minutes, debating whether to just open my laptop or try to find some automated tool online that wouldn’t give my computer a virus.

Wrestling with iPad Photoshop and basic crop tools

I have an iPad, so I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll just use the Photoshop app on there.’ I pay for the Adobe Cloud subscription anyway, so it felt like the most legitimate path. I opened the file, but the interface on the tablet version always feels a bit like I’m playing a game of hide-and-seek with the tools I actually need. Trying to constrain the aspect ratio while keeping the file size small enough felt like an unnecessary struggle. I remember when I used to do this on a proper desktop computer with a mouse; it felt so much more precise. Now, I’m just pinching and zooming on a screen, hoping I don’t accidentally blur the edges of my face while trying to meet their weirdly narrow pixel requirements.

Avoiding the urge to over-edit with AI

Everywhere I look lately, there’s news about AI logo generation or people using ‘generative fill’ to fix the background of their photos. Even with the new iOS updates, there’s this ‘expand’ feature that fills in empty space like magic. For a second, I looked at my photo and thought about just letting an AI clean up my blazer or fix the lighting, but then I stopped myself. It’s for a government-linked qualification. The last thing I want is to have some weird AI artifact on my face that makes me look like an uncanny valley version of myself. I’ve read enough news about people using Photoshop to fake university diplomas and certificates to know that the verification software they use on these platforms is getting smarter, too. I kept it simple—just cropped and saved. No fancy filters, no generative backgrounds.

The lingering frustration of file compression

After finally getting the dimensions right, the file was still hovering right around that 200KB limit. It’s such a narrow window. If I saved it at high quality, it was too large. If I dropped the quality too much, I looked like a pixelated ghost from a 90s video game. I found myself creating a new email address just to send the image to myself as an attachment, thinking the mail server might compress it automatically—a trick I learned years ago when I didn’t know how to use image export settings properly. It’s funny how, despite all these advancements in software like Adobe’s ‘Enterprise Coworker’ tools or massive AI language models, I’m still stuck wrestling with a 90×120 pixel file for a standard form. I eventually managed to get it under the limit after about five different export attempts. I’m still not sure if the photo looks exactly like me anymore, but the website finally accepted the upload, and honestly, I’m too tired to care if it looks a bit grainy.