Image and Photo Apps

Photographs, images and graphics can be created, edited and modified using various programs.

Photoshop is one of the best available for doing every kind of image editing and manipulation, but I use GIMP which is comparable and free. You can do cropping, resizing, colour balancing, background removal, etc.

Background removal can be tedious, but there is an easier way with Viznoz's online service that does quite a good job of removing backgrounds in seconds. Also try Remove.bg.

To remove selected objects from a photo try Cleanup.pictures. You use a "brush" of various sizes to outline and fill in the area to be removed. You need the Pro paid version to save pictures in full resolution; lower resolution (maximum 720px) pictures are free. These pictures were originally 4032x3024. (The cost for the Pro version is US$5 per month or $36 per year.)

To test it, I tried a simple removal of the napkin on the table beside the Kinnie drink I had in Malta. Not bad for taking only about 15 seconds.

before

after

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Identifying Unknown Photo Locations

Finding the location of a photo may be found by first looking at the metadata that is embedded in a photograph. A website like Jimpl will display all of the metadata which may include the location by name or as coordinates: 40°37′57″N x 22°56′27″E. Or you can use a Windows feature by right-clicking on a picture and selecting Properties > Details and scrolling down through the information.

If the metadata information is not sufficient, try uploading the image to Google's image search. The Bing browser also does this but has an additional feature. Using the Bing browser go to image search:

Then click on the Visual Search button...

and zoom in on distinctive aspects of the image and search again. Try this a number of times on various areas of the image. The image above is the zoomed-in section of the photograph, and Bing was able to identify the location of the photo above: Ullswater, Lake District, England.

And both Google and Bing quickly identified the above photo correctly as Aristoteleos Square, Thessaloniki, Greece.

Liron Segev has a good video describing the methods above.

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Photo Privacy

If you are uploading your photos online to public sites like Facebook or Twitter, for privacy or security reasons you may not want all of your information contained in the metadata of the photo included. This can be your name and location. There are a few ways of editing or removing your metadata. Removing the metadata also saves some storage space.

REMOVING
The Jimpl website mentioned above has the option of letting you download a copy of the image you uploaded stripped of all metadata. For JPG images you can download and run JPGCleaner. It works great for large collections of photos and is very fast. 

EDITING
Use the Windows feature noted above by right-clicking on a picture and selecting Properties > Details, and at the bottom click on "Remove Properties and Personal Information".
On the new window, select "Create a copy with all possible properties removed" and click "OK."

Windows EXIF viewer/editor (click to enlarge)