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Exif Removal


The Big Lebowski

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As many people are aware, when you take a picture with a digital camera information about the picture settings and the camera used are stored as part of the picture. Basically, if you register your camera with the manufacturer, then use the camera to take yard flicks or such and then publish them on a website then authorities can find out exactly who you are from the picture easily enough. Has anyone here found a program that can remove this info from a batch of flicks easily? At the moment it involes cut and paste into a new image in photoshop to remove it. A pain in the ass and time consuming.

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Where did you get this information?

 

I've looked through EXIFs for all three of the digicams I owned just now and see no unique identifying information in any of them, just camera make & model. Sometimes even that is vague. Do you have any proof that this is actually being done or is this one of those magical "I heard this from a friend of a friend" crackpot urban legends?

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Guest imported_Tesseract

I'm not sure how big of a threat the exif tags are to be honest but i gave it some tests and this is how you remove them.

 

I used IrfanView which btw is the best free image viewer if you dont wanna be using photoshop to view your flicks, make a slideshow etc.

 

Anyway,

 

 

Save the flick as a tiff> Open tiff, resave as a jpg> Exif info erased as they get lost once converted to tiff.

 

(For this option, using a photoshop action to automate the process makes this really fast and effortless)

 

 

Thats for sure one way, now, if you use irfanview when you open a jpg and try to save it with a new name you have a small window with save options were you set the compression etc. Among the options theres this little box that sais 'keep original exif tag' leave that unticked and your new copy will be exif free.

 

Thats all

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You're going to lose quality by converting going JPG -> TIFF -> JPG but when you're this paranoid I guess you don't care. The file still has a date on it, so you'd better figure out a way to erase that too. Also, remnants of it that can be retrieved by forensic scientists will remain on your hard drive and memory card, so you better erase those at least 20 times each with bit shifted information. Also, you don't know where the information is stored on your hard drive so better erase the whole thing 20 times as soon as you read this message.

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Guest imported_Tesseract

hmm, could be but if you keep the highest quality values in all conversion it shouldnt be anything visible...this thread just got hysterical head to toes, haha

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Originally posted by GnomeToys@Jan 4 2005, 07:50 PM

Where did you get this information?

 

I've looked through EXIFs for all three of the digicams I owned just now and see no unique identifying information in any of them, just camera make & model. Sometimes even that is vague. Do you have any proof that this is actually being done or is this one of those magical "I heard this from a friend of a friend" crackpot urban legends?

 

When I view my exif information in one of those exif information programs it does give the body number of my Canon 300D and it does the same for my 1D MkII. I've no proof that anyone has been charged this way but I don't want to be the first, it's a pretty simple way of tracking pictures to a camera. I'm sure it would be a good way for cops to find dumb paedo's spreading their flicks on the net. I'll take a screen shot of the info tomorrow, don't have the program on this PC.

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edit:

 

 

So for some reason canon stuck this in their professional SLRs, but Sigma didn't, Nikon didn't, and Sony didn't (in their prosumer cams). Well, I don't know what to tell you, go shoot your train pictures with an old piece of crap point and shoot if you're that worried about it. None of the cameras I've ever worked with have done this, so you're a special case, but I'm sure if you can afford ~$5,000.00 worth of professional DSLRs and the glass to go with them you won't have a problem bailing yourself out of the tiny jail fines you get in or just buying a cheaper camera to bench with.

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Here are EXIFs from my various cams.

 

ImageDescription - 
Make - NIKON
Model - E775
Orientation - Top left
XResolution - 300
YResolution - 300
ResolutionUnit - Inch
Software - E775v1.3u
DateTime - 2002:03:07 23:14:54
YCbCrPositioning - Co-Sited
ExifOffset - 284
ExposureTime - 1/119.4 seconds
FNumber - 4.90
ExposureProgram - Normal program
ISOSpeedRatings - 200
ExifVersion - 0210
DateTimeOriginal - 2002:03:07 23:14:54
DateTimeDigitized - 2002:03:07 23:14:54
ComponentsConfiguration - YCbCr
CompressedBitsPerPixel - 2 (bits/pixel)
ExposureBiasValue - 0.00
MaxApertureValue - F 3.36
MeteringMode - Multi-segment
LightSource - Auto
Flash - Fired
FocalLength - 17.40 mm
UserComment - 
FlashPixVersion - 0100
ColorSpace - sRGB
ExifImageWidth - 1600
ExifImageHeight - 1200
InteroperabilityOffset - 886
FileSource - DSC - Digital still camera
SceneType - A directly photographed image

Maker Note (Vendor): - 
Data version - 1 (256)
ISO Setting - 0
Color Mode - COLOR
Image Quality - NORMAL
White Balance - AUTO
Image Sharpening - AUTO
Focus Mode - AF-C
Flash Setting - RED-EYE
Unknown - 8.83
ISO Selection - AUTO
Image Adjustment - NORMAL
Auxiliary Lens - OFF
Manual Focus Distance - 0.00/0.00
Digital Zoom - 1.00 x
AF Focus Position - Center
Scene Mode - PARTY/INDOOR


File: DSC01413.JPG

ImageDescription - 
Make - SONY
Model - CYBERSHOT
Orientation - Top left
XResolution - 72
YResolution - 72
ResolutionUnit - Inch
DateTime - 2003:01:25 18:10:25
YCbCrPositioning - Co-Sited
ExifOffset - 218
ExposureTime - 1/60 seconds
FNumber - 2.00
ExposureProgram - Normal program
ISOSpeedRatings - 100
ExifVersion - 0210
DateTimeOriginal - 2003:01:25 18:10:25
DateTimeDigitized - 2003:01:25 18:10:25
ComponentsConfiguration - YCbCr
CompressedBitsPerPixel - 2 (bits/pixel)
ExposureBiasValue - 0.00
MaxApertureValue - F 2.04
MeteringMode - Multi-segment
LightSource - Auto
Flash - Not fired
FocalLength - 9.70 mm
FlashPixVersion - 0100
ColorSpace - sRGB
ExifImageWidth - 2560
ExifImageHeight - 1920
InteroperabilityOffset - 642
FileSource - DSC - Digital still camera
SceneType - A directly photographed image

Maker Note (Vendor): - 


fall1.jpg

Make - SIGMA
Model - SIGMA SD9
Orientation - Top left
XResolution - 180
YResolution - 180
ResolutionUnit - Inch
Software - Adobe Photoshop 7.0
DateTime - 2004:10:11 15:12:45
YCbCrPositioning - Co-Sited
ExifOffset - 208
ExposureTime - 1/30 seconds
FNumber - 4.50
ExposureProgram - Normal program
ISOSpeedRatings - 100
ExifVersion - 0220
DateTimeOriginal - 2004:10:09 17:30:58
DateTimeDigitized - 2004:10:11 15:07:56
ComponentsConfiguration - YCbCr
ExposureBiasValue - 0.00
MaxApertureValue - F 4.44
MeteringMode - Multi-segment
Flash - Not fired
FocalLength - 62 mm
FlashPixVersion - 0100
ColorSpace - sRGB
ExifImageWidth - 500
ExifImageHeight - 815
SensingMethod - One-chip color area sensor
FileSource - DSC - Digital still camera
CustomRendered - Custom process
ExposureMode - Auto
WhiteBalance - Manual
FocalLengthIn35mmFilm - 105 mm
SceneCaptureType - Standard 

 

Nothing. Get a different camera and don't worry about it.

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  • 14 years later...
On 8/3/2019 at 4:16 AM, One Man Banned said:

@misteravencan correct me if I'm wrong but the "new" Oontz strips exif data from your pix before you post them, another good reason to keep it Oontz.

Yes, it strips virtually all exif data. Exception is photo orientation and I believe it might contain non specific data about the type of device or OS. Basically I left the bare minimum needed to have shots post in the proper orientation here on the forum, which is a little challenging since mobile devices handle that differently than digital cameras. 

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