How do I make an image (or video) safe to post online?

Submitted ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Dahlia@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I can scribble out identifying info (text, landmarks, faces) in an image, but I’ve heard images can have some geographic data. How do I remove that?

And video is a whole separate challenge - I don’t know how to edit video. Does video have other metadata like my location or stuff about my device? What’s some software good for beginners? How do you remove excess metadata with it?

Are there other considerations I should have?

(If there are step-by-step resources out there, please feel free to just link me to them.)

Thanks in advance!

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

fuzzy_feeling@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
exiftool might be, what you are looking for.

source
- MehBlah@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  OP should be aware removing this data will often require you to change the orientation of the image. Its one of the problems with using exif data to store the orientation rather allowing the image to be seen the way its really stored. I made one of my daughters high school teachers furious when I pointed out why the images the kids were uploading were being saved ‘sidewase’ to use the teachers description. When she assured me the software vendor assured them it wasn’t anything they were doing and I showed her on the sites support pages where they addressed the issue. I also explained to my daughter the correct way to take the pictures with her phone so they looked the same after the exif data was removed. She told the rest of the kids and the problem largely went away.
  
  source
  - grue@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You could always selectively remove the sensitive exif info while leaving the orientation intact, though. It just takes being slightly more competent at using the tool.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
- disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yup. Editing or deleting the exif data is the best way to go. If you just want to quickly remove location data, use a screenshot of the image.
  
  source
- treadful@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  exiftool -all= /path/to/file
  
  EZ
  
  source
DBT@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If you have an iPhone you could make a basic shortcut to do that.

Here’s what it would look like.

Make sure to uncheck “Preserve Metadata.”

source
subignition@fedia.io ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
On Windows, right-click Properties on any image file and use "Remove Properties and Personal Information" in the Details tab.

source
INHALE_VEGETABLES@aussie.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Black out any mountain ranges or the geo guessers will know.

source
Zeppo@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I use Gimp. There are versions for Linux, Mac and Windows.

Open the image. If it contains Exif rotation data, it will ask if you want to rotate it or leave it as-is. Choose to rotate it. It will also probably ask about transforming the color profile. Just say whatever to that as it’s not a huge difference.

Crop the image or do whatever, then choose “File > Export As”. You’ll get a filename dialog, where you can also specify the format in the extension of the filename, then “Export Image” dialog with a lot of options. Uncheck “Save Exif data” and “Save XMP data”, and click Export.

source
pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
add a bunch of random text under the text you’re trying to censor, that’s my contribution.

source
Saltarello@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
For images, on Android you could use Imagepipe.

Once you’ve set it up, simply “share” the image to Imagepipe, it does its thing, then automatically passes it on to whatever app you want - for examole a messaging app for you to send to others (it also stores a copy of the image sans metadata in an Imagepipe folder in your gallery for ease of access should you need it again).

For video, from memory I think mp3tag for Windows/Mac can remove metadata from some video formats

source
julianh@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
You’re right - most media formats have support for metadata, which can include all sorts of things depending on how the image is created. For instance, most phones have an option to add location data to photos.

A lot of identifiable info like location data is usually an option you can turn off. And there are a lot of tools to remove metadata from files. A quick search brought up this, which seems fairly reputable (and open source, which is usually good for sensitive stuff like this).

source