Removing EXIF data

This may seem odd, but I have my reasons for wanting to do this. How can I ELIMINATE all EXIF data

from a digital photo. I want to be able to upload the photo without anyone being able to pull up data

such as what camera was used to take the photo, exposure data, etc, etc. Can this be done? I would

think so, but I have not found how to do it. Please help! I am using PS CS if that makes any difference.

 

Thanks so much in advance.

Steve

In Photoshop CS doing a "Save For Web..." should strip out the EXIF data.

 

I believe they fixed that in CS3.

Or, open the image for editing. Box a mask around the image. Paste that into a NEW image. "Save as..." into a new JPG. Only the pixels will go along for the ride.

Dont laff.

You can see some of the meta data with notepad or a hex editor. I just downloaded some open source and freeware programs that do just that but I havent intalled them yet. I like to scan for sypware before I suggest anything so it will be awhile.

Another idea, though I have not tried it, is to use WordPad to load and view the digital pic file. You won't recognize any of the image, since at that level, you're looking at the pure binary. But you should be able to scan down through the length of the file and locate the data fields you want to null out (if they are stored in there as Text). Then use the EDIT function to either Backspace over those fields, or replace the characters with a plain space. Then save to a different file and see if you can still open them with a graphics application like Photoshop. That MIGHT work. Usually text fields like this are found either in the file header, near the top, or in the trailer, at the bottom.

In case your input is RAW: some converters give you the choice of exporting with/without EXIF data. Also check the web for programs that can alter the EXIF info.

Should you be a friend of commandline tools ... download "jhead" ...

try "jhead -purejpg yourimage.jpg".

 

Also, "exiftool" can do a lot of interesting things to the exifhead (including deletition) ... "exiftool -all= yourimage.jpg" will erase the exifheader.

Matt, thanks a MILLION for the answer, and to everyone else too. I don't know why I had

not though of moving the pic into a new blank canvas. That worked!

 

Thanks again guys, nothing like good help when you need it! :-)

 

Steve

It's worth mentioning, Steve, that if you open up a JPG, and then save it as a new JGP, you're risking a little degredation to the quality of the image (compression artifacts, etc). If you happen to be doing this while scaling something down for web viewing, it's a good time to do it, if that's also when you want to ditch the EXIF data.

Exactly the recompressing that Matt mentions is not happening when using the above mentioned commandline tools (jhead, exiftool) since they are only reconstructing the jpg with sections taken from the original file ... but skipping the exif section. (Means they don't decompress+recompress they just copy the compressed section to the new file).