OT: Remove Date from Still Photos

Tim L wrote on 5/20/2006, 8:37 PM
Okay, I made a BIG blunder and I'm hoping the really smart guys that read this forum can help me out...

I just returned from a 3-day trip to Washington DC with my son's 8th grade class. I shot over 200 still photos (digital camera), and as I was uploading them to the computer today, my heart just sank: I did not notice that the date-time feature was enabled, and all of my carefully composed pictures now have a horrid, distracting, orange date-time in the bottom right corner of the image. I didn't notice this while shooting because other on-screen info on the camera covers up the date-time stamp on the image. Also, there *is* a tiny, little icon that says "Date" on the camera's LCD screen, but I didn't really notice it (especially without my reading glasses on).

My wife doesn't understand why it bothers me, but I just HATE having the date on the image like that. Especially since I'd like to use a bunch of the stills with the video I shot to make a DVD of the trip. Nothing screams "amateur" more than having an orange date in the corner of the picture. (And besides, the time was an hour off anyway, so it's not even the right time!)

Anyway, do you guys have any suggestions on how to get rid of the date-time from the image? I have an old Corel PhotoHouse program with a clone tool, but that's a lot of manual editing for 200+ photos. I've tried several Google searchs, but haven't really hit on anything. (Most of the hits talk about removing the date-time metadata from the EXIF information.)

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Tim L

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 5/20/2006, 9:54 PM
You can probably fix a lot of them by cropping. Yes, you'll lose some of the picture. The people watching the video will never know what's missing though.
IanG wrote on 5/21/2006, 5:24 AM
If cropping isn't an option you might be able to make the time stamp less noticeable by changing the colour to something close to the background. I don't know of anything that'll do this in batch mode though, even if all the backgrounds were the same colour.

Ian G.
Jose M. Estrada wrote on 5/21/2006, 8:26 AM
Tim, with you photo editor you can erase the date stamp from your stills. Corel's Paint Shop is a good tool to do just what you want, 200 photos is not that much, I did close to 300 using the clone tool to remove unwanted objects, it took me around 2 Hr. Paint Shop Pro X is faster, you can DL the 30 days free trial. And you'll be set in no time. If you are going to Pan/Zoom in the pictures you do not need to worry for the date stamp, just don't pan/zoom too close to it and nobody will notice it. Hope this helps!.Good Editing!
Tim L wrote on 5/22/2006, 6:24 PM
Thanks for the opinions, guys.

I think I'm going to do the "manual editing each picture" thing, using a clone tool to overwrite the date. I'm pretty confident this will give me the most satisfying result.

In most cases, I don't think I'd be satisfied with cropping. Almost all of the shots are photos with memorials or buildings in the background that barely fit into the picture to begin with.

I will probably also download and try the Paint Shop Pro trial. I've heard good things about it. (Plus, "free trial" always sounds good.)

The Corel PhotoHouse program I have (kind of a cheap, home version of Corel Draw and PhotoPaint) is an older, 2000 version that I got for $4 (plus shipping) at "buycheapsoftware.com":
http://www.buycheapsoftware.com/details~productID~1077.asp

It's an unusual website. They sell old "OEM" versions of software that usually are bundled with video cards and such. To meet legal requirements, this software can only be sold if it is bundled with hardware, so when you buy OEM software, they ship it with an old memory simm or some oddball network card or something.

I see they have PaintShop Pro X for $33 + $5 shipping.
http://www.buycheapsoftware.com/details~productID~3000.asp Maybe I'll end up buying it there.

Thanks,
Tim L

(Umm, I don't have any connection to the above website, but if this comes across as too promotional, or violates forum rules, I'll understand if this post gets edited by a moderator...)