Change Pixel Values of Image to remove Date

Question

What is the most efficient technique to remove the date that a Camera embeds on any image it takes.

The task is to prepare a script/code/software that shall remove the date from the given input image file (jpeg, png).

Please let me know an optimum way to accomplish this.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Here is an alternative approach to the question. You can determine the average colour of the bottom right corner of the image (size 250px wide x 100px high) with Imageagick like this:

ave=$(convert sign.jpg -gravity southeast -crop 250x100+0+0 -scale 1x1 -format "%[pixel:p{0,0}]" info:)

That will give you the value srgb(199,181,119) for this image. Now you can create a rectangle (200px x 50px) that colour and overlay it onto the image and then blur the edges a little to blend it in:

convert sign.jpg \( -size 200x50 xc:"$ave" \) -geometry +970+780 -composite -region 240x90+950+760 -blur 0x10 out.jpg

Answer 2

I am not sure if you were hoping for something that is forensically indetectable or something that more or less removes the distraction somewhat. Hopefully the latter :-)

A little measuring around shows that the date is located at the following position:

150x40+650+520

i.e. 150 pixels wide by 40 pixels high, located 650 pixels to the right of the top left corner and 520 pixels down from the top left corner.

So, one approach would be to copy the piece of the image directly below that, and paste it on top of the date, which can be done in ImageMagick in one command like this:

convert sign.jpg \( +clone -crop 150x40+650+560 +repage \) -geometry +650+520 -composite out.jpg

That says... take the original image and create a copy of it (+clone), then cut out the piece specified after the crop command command and reset that as though it was the top left corner (+repage). Then paste (-composite) that image at offset +650+520 on top of the original image and save the result as out.jpg.

It is not a beautifully engiineered solution, but may be good enough. It may be desirable to blur the area a little, to help disguise it. Alternatively, it may be possible to select the colours within the date and make them transparent, then to displace the original image a little behind the transparent holes to fill them - I didn't choose that option because it is harder and because you may not like ImageMagick anyway, and there are actually several colours within the date field ranging from browns to golden yellows and selecting them without affecting the remainder of the image might start getting fun!

ImageMagick is free and available for Windows, OSX, Linux etc from here. It is ready installed on most Linux distros anyway.