Now that I explained you what EXIF Data is and showed you how you can view EXIF on JPEG files, I will now show you how to remove EXIF Data completely or partially from JPEG files.
1) EXIF Data and XMP Data explained
There are multiple reasons why you might want to remove EXIF fully or partially from files:
a) You are posting an image to a low-bandwidth site and need to keep the file sizes to a minimum
b) You want to protect your work and photographic style
c) You want to remove unnecessary junk from JPEG files to keep the file smaller, yet need to retain important EXIF Data such as shutter speed, aperture and ISO.
I personally use the last reason to keep my files a little smaller and to make sure that unnecessary junk does not get written into my JPEG files.
Let me first explain what EXIF Data is written into a file. If you use Adobe products such as Photoshop or Lightroom for manipulating your images, EXIF Data typically consists of three parts: the normal EXIF Data that contains your camera settings, the XMP Data that contains post-processing steps you took before the image was exported and a thumbnail of the image. Here is a short excerpt from the above URL:
XMP also defines particular schemas for basic properties useful for recording the history of a resource as it passes through multiple processing steps, from being photographed, scanned, or authored as text, through photo editing steps (such as cropping or color adjustment), to assembly into a final image. XMP allows each software program or device along the way to add its own information to a digital resource, which can then be retained in the final digital file.
Is this good or bad? Having XMP in your original image files is definitely good, since it retains your settings. However, why would you want to keep all of it in exported images?
Let’s look at a sample image that contains XMP Data:
I opened an image using an ASCII text editor and look at what’s in that file – that’s in addition to the EXIF Data that is already stored in the file header. Scrolling down, I could see everything from White Balance to Saturation and Hue adjustments I used in Lightroom before exporting the image. Worst of all, the file even included ALL of the image history, including what I did in Photoshop and how many times the image was saved!
Take a look at the yellow area highlighted in this screenshot:
I applied Tone Curve to my image and as you can see, the history is right there. Imagine how large your files can grow if you work on them multiple times! In addition, why would you want to preserve the thumbnail of an image that is being exported for the web?
2) Removing unnecessary EXIF and XMP Data
Let’s now talk about how you can either completely or partially remove both EXIF and XMP Data from an image. There are multiple ways to remove EXIF and XMP data from JPEG files – you can either remove EXIF data completely, or you can choose what to keep, while deleting specifically what you want.
2.1) How to remove EXIF Data from an image file completely
The easiest way to remove EXIF and XMP Data from an image without involving third party software is to either do it in Photoshop or in Lightroom. In Photoshop, simply go to File->Save for Web & Devices and make sure that “Metadata” is set to “None”:
Once you save the file, all EXIF and XMP Data will be gone!
You can achieve a similar result in Lightroom by checking “Minimize Embedded Metadata” while exporting an image:
However, this only does what it says – it minimizes EXIF metadata and does not completely remove it. Most of the EXIF Data such as Shutter Speed, Aperture, ISO and XMP Data will be gone, but some of it such as copyright info, your image dimensions and image thumbnail will be kept. I’m not sure why Adobe chose to do this, as I find this feature useless. It would have been much better if there was an option to completely remove metadata rather than to “minimize” it.
There is one more way to remove EXIF Data from files completely, but you would need to get Phil Harvey’s “ExifTool“. Download the executable file, then use the following command prompt:
exiftool -all= SourceFile.jpg
Obviously, replace SourceFile.jpg with the name of the JPEG file you want EXIF Data deleted from. All metadata, including the image thumbnail will be stripped from the file.
2.2) How to selectively delete EXIF Data from images
This part is for those like me, who like to keep important EXIF Data in their images, but want to get rid of all other junk such as XMP Data and image thumbnails from their images. There are two ways of doing this – from Lightroom directly, or from a command prompt. I personally like to do it directly from Lightroom, because it saves me a lot of time. If you already have a bunch of exported files, it might be easier to just run the tool from the command prompt.
First, download ExifTool, if you haven’t done it already. Create a folder called “ExifTool” inside “C:Program Files (x86)” on 64 bit systems and “C:Program Files” on 32 bit systems and put the executable “exiftool.exe” into that folder. On my 64 bit Windows 7 system, the full path to the executable file is “C:Program Files (x86)ExifToolexiftool.exe”. You can save it elsewhere, if you want to – I just personally prefer to keep it in program files folder. Then, go ahead and create a text file in notepad and copy-paste the following into it:
exiftool -overwrite_original ^ -XMP:All= ^ -IPTC:Keywords= ^ -ThumbnailImage= ^ %*
Now save the file as “RemoveJunkEXIF.bat” in the same folder where you saved the exiftool executable. You should now have two files in that folder. So, what does the above batch file do? It basically calls exiftool, removes all XMP Data, IPTC Keywords and image thumbnail from your file, while keeping the rest of the EXIF Data intact. The option “-overwrite_original” makes the tool overwrite the file, rather than creating a separate file and renaming the original.
Once you save the file, go to Lightroom and open the export dialog box. On the very bottom of the page, expand “Post-Processing”, then select “Open in Other Application…” from the “After Export” drop-down. Then click on “Choose…” button, browse to “C:Program Files (x86)ExifTool” folder and double click on RemoveJunkEXIF.bat file. The export screen should look like this:
Now click “Export” and make sure that you are not getting any errors. If the export succeeded and you did not receive any errors, you are all set! Next time when you export your images, this setting will be preserved and your EXIF Data will be correctly removed from your files!
If you have a bunch of image files that you need to remove EXIF Data from, then I recommend executing exiftool directly from a command prompt. Just copy all your image files to the “C:Program Files (x86)ExifTool” directory, then open up command prompt and do the following:
cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\ExifTool" RemoveJunkEXIF.bat *.jpg
Obviously, if you are on a different platform or placed exiftool in a different folder, just change the folder path above and everything should work perfectly!
P.S. One more thing. If you are wondering why I couldn’t just use Jeffrey Friedl’s “Metadata Wrangler“, then you should know that I actually did use it for a while. But his plugin continuously crashed my Lightroom after 10-15 exports and there was a time limit, which needed a paypal donation to fix. I wouldn’t mind making a contribution to his plugin, but I was getting tired of it crashing and needed a different, permanently working solution.
Please let me know how this worked out for you by leaving a comment below :)
About Nasim Mansurov
Nasim,
I was hitting the same obstacles you mentioned while using the “wrangler” plugin. Thanks to your description and Phil’s EXIFTool everything is nice and cosy.
Thanks,
Paul
Paul, you are most welcome! Thank you for stopping by and dropping a comment! :)
I just wanted to say that your article was informative in ways you might not have intended! I found it because I was having trouble retaining my EXIF in JPEGs made from Photoshop files. But what I learned here is how to set up a preset in Lightroom for exporting my images as JPEGs in the size I want them. I’m a very new LR user and there’s no manual. And on dial-up, the online help just doesn’t load. I knew there had to be a way to export a JPEG that was larger than 640 pixels wide, but couldn’t figure out how until I saw your screen shots and realized that the export dialog box had a scroll bar! All I saw before that was the Export Locations, File Naming and File Settings options.
I guess I am getting blinder as I get older, LOL! But once I realized there were more options I could scroll to, I was good.
Cynthia, thanks for stopping by and dropping a comment. I’m glad that you found my article useful! Please let me know if you have any questions.
there is another impotent reason you might want to remove EXIF – to protect your privacy when the photo is shared. If a camera with GPS was used, the Exif will include the coordinates of the location where the photo was take. This can expose your home address if the photo was taken there. The thumbnail in Exif can also cause embarrassment (See http://graphicssoft.about.com/b/2003/07/26/techtvs-cat-schwartz-exposed-is-photoshop-to-blame.htm ). in addition to the command line based “ExifTool”, there are free batch Exif removers with easy to use GUI such as “jStrip” and “BatchPurifier LITE”.
Duphi, I agree – if a GPS unit is present in the camera, removing all EXIF or parts of it might be a good idea.
Thank you for sharing the information about other EXIF utilities.
Dear Nassim
I entered some incorret charactors in front of my name on my nikkon d3000 comment option. Trash can button only hels to delete current position charactors. Please help me to delete these unwanted charattors.
Lilantha, how about using the round dial to move the characters to the left? You can use the trash button afterwards.
Dear Nasim,
Thank you very much for your kind advice. According to that I done it correctly.
By the way what is the meaning of using that option which, that comment entered by me is not visible in the pictures. I want to know, inserting comment and copyright mark can be done only by using PC? I am new to photography!
I apologize for type you name incorrectly in previous mail.
Lilantha, the comment/copyright information you are putting on the camera will be automatically embedded to every picture. It does not mean that the image will be watermarked with your copyright info though – all it does is add some extra data to each image, so when you publish it on the web, it will contain the copyright data in the image header, also known as “EXIF“.
Inserting a copyright watermark can only be done using an image-manipulation tool like Adobe Photoshop, you will not be able to do it on the camera.
Dear Nasim
Thank you very much for every thing! I read some articles of you and hope read everything. Those are very helpful. And I managed to put a comment and read EXIF data by using third party tool name “photoscan”.
By the way Nasim, I live in Sri Lanka and If you happens to visit this Inland I would like give my fullest support for you.
Lilantha, you are most welcome and thank you for the invite, I truly appreciate it :)
Dear Nasim
I sent a mail to you which was not permitted here( It says my mail is a spam). If you received it please give me some comments after checking those photoes.
Lilantha, I have not had a chance to read my email yet. I will try to respond as soon as I can.
Sure.. help all the thieving bastard plagiarists out there
Syd, there is nothing wrong with removing unnecessary EXIF data from photos. Why waste Internet space with thumbnails of images and Lightroom settings in your images?
Sorry Nasim, It was a lot of talking but as usual nothing actual. So it worked zero. The point is one needs to remove the name of the owner in a file which is his computer name and apparently he does not want to send a file with this data. Neither Photoshop nor any your mentioned software can solve the problem. On the other side I do not see the reason to remove anything else from the file. Sorry but all you have written was waste of time.
John, what do you mean by “needs to remove the name of the owner”? Owner of what, where?
The above instructions are for removing EXIF data from files.
I really appreciate the time and effort you put into writing your how-to articles, I just can’t image why I would want to remove all my EXIF data from an image, especially if it gets shared across the internet. I attached copyright information, website, and all that as a way to show ownership of the image when it is shared or used somewhere else, and also just a way to promote my photography. I understand people have privacy issues, especially with GPS location information attached to images, I’ve just always been trying to preserve that data not delete it
Great article. Thanks for the info, even if I didn’t use it exactly the way you put it out there. :)
The ExifTool command from Section 2.1 was very useful, I didn’t want to download the heavy & commecial software like Photoshop to remove that data.
Nasim,
ExifTool is a great and powerful tool for anyone who wants to use the command line. My small little software company in Philadelphia just released a nifty little freeware that does it faster, via drag and drop and with a single click. The application is for Windows and is called FileMind QuickFix. It removes GPS location data as well as any other personal information (Iptc, XMP, Exif) from photos (JPG only at this time), with a single mouse click. A detailed description, youtube video and download link can be found here: http://www.metabilitysoftware.com/products/filemind-quickfix.html
Nasim, you are the only one who had the correct answer for my problems with metadata saved in the images! You rock! Great work sir!
The information and directions provided were precisely perfect. Thanks again.
Good Day Nasim!
Could you please share with me the name of the ASCII text editor that you have used above? I tried using notepad but that was chaotic.
I would greatly appreciate knowing this! Your article is insightful.
-Em
Em, it is not a text editor – it is a file manager called “Far Manager“. I am very used to it since DOS Norton Commander days :)
Thank you for informing me Nasim! I am awfully sorry for the delay – I’d not been informed of a reply. Realized it after returning to your page! Have a phenomenal life! :)
-Em
Very Very Very
Thanks
Hi Nasim
Thanks for your article.
Another point that makes your article VERY VERY important. When you syncronizes a Win folder with IPAD, IPhoto orders the photos by the EXIF creation date, instead of Windows file name OR Windows file creation date. That make photos on IPhoto a liitle mess. So, if I delete EXIF data, Sync/Iphoto uses Windows creation date to order the photos. I Iam doing a small programs that:
1- delete exifs using your instructions for EXIFTools
2- re-dates Windows files creation+modification dates so that they becom in sync with file names.
item 2 above is ready and working, I’m now working into include EXFtools to it.
We also developed an utility for removing EXIF, ExifCleaner. It is a paid application, but it is quite accurate in dealing with various metadata types, has a nice graphical interface for those who dislike command lines. It is integrated with the Windows Explorer shell and lets to preview EXIF fields before actual deletion.
I’ve read alot about how to take care of EXIF info on PC’s but what about for the mac user? Any drag and drop solutions for us???
Thanks