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EXIF Data Stripping Trick- Easy! But New? Foolproof?
 

Because I have a $1,000 camera, it's hard to not use it to take great photos of expensive items you want to list... especially since a good set of photos can make or break a good selling price. I know there is EXIF data strippers, but here's something I've been toying with that I havent noticed mentioned on here...

If you are familiar with the "screen grab" key on your keyboard (Usually the left-most of the 3 keys above your number pad on a desktop keyboard, labeled "Print Screen/SysRq" when you press it you get a saved grab of EXACTLY what you see on your screen (cursor, flash, etc...) which is saved "in your mouse" so that you can right click and "paste" into Paint. (DEFINITELY a computer trick to learn, I can't believe I didnt know about it before recently- if you're not familiar with it, read that again and open a page in PAINT and try it. 30 seconds later you'll learn the best thing since you learned how to copy and paste!)

If you open your EXIF-loaded photo onto your screen in the most flatteringly version (large and viewable on the page) and press the "Print screen" button, you can then get a screen grab of it and put it in Paint (right click and "paste" when you are in the dotted line mode from the toolbox) and then save that version (trimmed to eliminate the rest of the page you grabbed in the screen-grab) and not only does it retain a nice quality photo, but when I put it into a few Picture Information Extractor programs, I get NOTHING! NO DATA! Not even a pixel count, date, just the current date and that it's labeled "modified".

Does anyone know or have a suggestion as to whether this is foolproof? I realize it takes a little bit of time, but if you want 5 or 10 high-quality photos of an expensive item (or something that you'd be listing over and over again) it's not much extra work to be bulletproof against being tracked by photo data.

Any suggestions whether this sounds solid?

Thanks!

wow i will try out and check it...if it works this would be great.

Donna,

Ok, I've known about the print screen button for many years, using it to edit things in paint. It just copies whatever is on your screen to the clipboard, the same place as if you were in a program and went up to "edit-copy".

My question though is:

The EXIF data stored in your photo is what the eBay bots look for? To see if it's the same pic as on another account?

So when you print screen, (which really you are just taking a picture of the picture), then you put it in paint and save it has a new photo. .....Yes, your right it wouldn't retain the old data. (thinking while I'm typing.)

Never thought about using it that way but, yes, it would work.

Great job for thinking outside of the box! :cheer:

But wouldn't doing this just be like using a camera? If you did this for every photo it would show up the same? So your just swapping one picture data for another??? I am prob wrong lol. I am gonna go with Exif remover just to be safe.