SignForge

Email Signature with Photo

A professional headshot in an email signature accelerates trust — recipients match a face to a name before they've spoken to you. The implementation requires getting three things right: the correct image dimensions, the correct hosting setup (Gmail doesn't allow base64), and the Outlook DPI scaling fix so the photo doesn't render at the wrong size on high-resolution Windows displays.

Add a Photo to Your Signature

SignForge supports headshot photos with correct Outlook DPI fix applied automatically. Free, no signup.

Create My Signature →

Works with Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail & more

Photo Specifications

Display size80–100px square

Large enough to recognise, small enough not to push contact details off-screen. Use square crop — rectangular headshots require more layout space and rarely align cleanly.

Export size (retina)160–200px square

Export at 2× the display size. Set width='80' and style='width:80px' on the img tag to constrain it. On retina/HiDPI displays, the image renders at 80px visually but with double the pixel data — crisp instead of blurry.

File formatJPG or PNG

JPG for photos: smaller file size at equivalent quality. PNG for headshots with transparent or non-white backgrounds. Target under 30KB after compression (use Squoosh or TinyPNG).

ShapeSquare (or circular PNG)

If you want a circular headshot, export a circular PNG — do not rely on CSS border-radius. Outlook ignores border-radius and displays the image as a square.

BackgroundNeutral or matching email background

White, light grey, or professionally blurred backgrounds. Avoid busy backgrounds that compete with your contact information.

The Outlook DPI Fix for Photos

On Windows displays set to 125% or 150% scaling (common on laptops and 4K monitors), Outlook scales images up proportionally. A 100px headshot becomes 125–150px, pushing your contact details sideways. The fix: specify width in both the HTML attribute and inline CSS.

<img src="https://yoursite.com/headshot.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="Your Name" style="width:80px;max-width:80px;height:80px;display:block;border-radius:4px;" />

width="80" — HTML attribute. Outlook reads this to override DPI scaling.

style="width:80px;max-width:80px;" — CSS. Constrains the image in Gmail and browser-based clients.

display:block; — Removes the 4px phantom gap below inline images in email clients.

Hosting Your Photo

Use a public HTTPS URL

Gmail does not support base64-encoded images in signatures. Your photo must be hosted at a publicly accessible HTTPS URL — not a Google Drive link, not a corporate intranet path, not a file:// reference.

Acceptable hosts

Your company website (/images/headshot.jpg), a CDN (Cloudinary free tier, Cloudflare Images), or a public GitHub Pages repository. Vercel and Netlify static deployments also work.

Avoid corporate file storage

SharePoint, OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox direct links either require authentication or have unstable URL patterns that change. Use a dedicated web host.

Gmail re-hosts images

When you paste a signature with an external image URL into Gmail, Gmail proxies the image through its own CDN (lh3.googleusercontent.com). This is normal — the image still displays correctly for recipients.

When to Use (and Skip) a Photo

USE A PHOTO

  • ✓Sales and account management
  • ✓Recruitment and HR
  • ✓Real estate and property
  • ✓Executive coaching and consulting
  • ✓Client-facing services where personal trust matters

SKIP THE PHOTO

  • ✗Legal correspondence (especially contentious matters)
  • ✗Government and public sector
  • ✗Academic research correspondence
  • ✗Technical / developer roles where it reads as unusual
  • ✗Any context where DEI concerns make photo use sensitive

Related Guides

Add a Photo to Your Signature

Upload your headshot, pick a template, copy to Gmail or Outlook. Free, no signup.

Create My Signature →

Works with Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail & more