Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

I apologize, if this question is off topic, for this forum, but decided I'd ask, because this forum deals, in some capacity, with the modification/management of digital pictures.  I want pointers, on the best methods, for removing, the time/date stamp, from my digital pictures, and I don't have Adobe Photoshop - I've tried to find information, on the internet, but most of it seems to be written for Photoshop, which I don't have, or have access to, at the moment.

I've tried the Resynthesizer plug-in, for The Gimp, but it doesn't seem to produce acceptable results.  Do I have to 'bite the bullet', and get Photoshop (or Photoshop Elements), or are there other alternatives, that are either better or cheaper?

Thanks for chiming in. 

Darius

Hi Darius,

How many images do you need the stamp removed from? Perhaps someone (myself or other) could help you out.

Sorry I can't be of more help, but I only know Photoshop.
My first thoughts would be in using Photoshop - content aware. This should be fairly simple and quick. Or you could hand cloning the dates out of the images.

Hi Darius,
I assume they are camera jpeg files where the date in imprinted on the digital image.
You camera menu should have an option to switch this feature off but I expect you have a number of images where the damage is done.
You need an image editor with a "clone" facility. Cloning is where you are able to copy an area of the image to another part of the image to "cover it up".
For work like that I use Corel PaintShop Pro. It's a similar price to PS Elements but from what I've seen, has more features as well as being easier to use in some respects.

I've just checked, the Gimp has a clone tool, check this out:
http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/15037.html

Terry

change most anything you will ever want with exiftool - http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/%7Ephil/exiftool/ - for free!

Better still use ExiftoolGUI: http://freeweb.siol.net/hrastni3/foto/exif/exiftoolgui.htm
More user friendly for editing exif data and uses exiftool.
However, Darius mentioned trying a plugin for Gimp which is a sort of clone tool so I think the date stamp is an "in-camera" visible addition to the image which is probally not possible to remove by editing exif data.
Terry

Can you post an example here?  Depending on how large the text is and whether or not it always occurs in the same location in the image, you very well might be able to use Qimage's blemish removal tool to clone out the text.  What's even better, if we can use the blemish removal tool to create a decent cluster of blemish removals, you could use that filter and remove the text from all images in a batch.  Some people think the blemish removal tool is only for really tiny stuff like skin blemishes but with some creative use, I've used it to remove things as large as entire light poles.

Mike

Here's just a quick example with timestamp and removed via the QU blemish filter.

Mike