GitHub Education camera preview is clear but captured image becomes extremely pixelated

[deniziuss]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Form Errors & Technical Issues

Hi everyone,

Hello,
I am trying to apply for the GitHub Student Developer Pack. My academic document is completely clear and readable in the live camera preview. However, immediately after I press “Capture Photo”, GitHub heavily downscales or compresses the image and the text becomes extremely pixelated and unreadable.

I have tested this on multiple devices and browsers, including iPhone with Safari and Android with Chrome. The behavior is the same on every device. The camera itself is not the issue; the image only becomes degraded after GitHub processes the captured photo.

Because the verification page does not provide a normal file upload option, I am unable to submit my clear original academic document.

How can ı solve this problem?

[github-actions[bot]]

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[deniziuss]

Tested
iPhone + Safari + chrome + brave
Android + Chrome
Multiple devices

[ORCHORDS]

The pixelation is applied by GitHub's capture pipeline after the shutter fires — your camera and browser are fine, which matches what you saw testing iPhone/Safari and Android/Chrome. No device setting will change it, so the fix is to work around the capture step.

1. Feed the "camera" a pre-scanned image (most reliable). The form has no file-upload option by design (#172849), but you can point it at a clean scan with a virtual camera:

• Install OBS Studio (free), add your scanned document as an Image source sized to fill the whole canvas, then Start Virtual Camera.
• Reload the verification page, allow camera access, and pick "OBS Virtual Camera" as the input. The preview now shows your scan, so the pipeline receives a flat high-res source and the text survives the downscale.

2. If you stay on a real camera: fill the entire frame with the document — close, straight-on, evenly lit, nothing else visible — and make sure your name, the school's name, and a valid date are all legible in frame. The automated check reads those three, and large flat-on text survives the compression that destroys an angled shot.

3. If it still fails: open a ticket at education.github.com/support — say the capture step renders the document unreadable and attach your clear scan; support can verify manually. The official path is the same: reapply with an image that clearly shows name, school, and a valid date — Solving problems with your GitHub Education access.

The insight that saves the most time here: the check runs on the compressed capture, not your live preview — optimize for what survives the pipeline, not for what looks good on screen.

[deniziuss]

Thank you again for the detailed explanation and for taking the time to help.

Unfortunately, the third option is not available in my case. GitHub Education Support currently states that individual manual reviews and application status updates are no longer offered, so I cannot submit my clear original document to support for manual verification.

I will try the obs studio.