Remove Date And Time Stamp From Image For Free Using GIMP

In this post, I will discuss about removing the date stamp and time stamp from your digital photo by using a free tool GIMP. Sometimes, by mistake we forget to turn off the automatic date and time stamp feature for a picture on our digital camera and realize later that dates are imprinted on the photos. Images with a date and time stamp are a problem for various reasons. If you want to sell these photos by using a stock photo site like Shutterstock, there’s no way you can do that without cropping the image. Alternatively, if you want to use these images on your own projects, then also you need to crop the image or to hire a graphic designer or to buy a paid software which you can use to remove the date and time stamp on the image. For some images if you crop them, the main portion of the image will be cropped. We will do none of that and let’s remove the date and time stamp on the image by using a free tool GIMP. I have created an easy step by step guide to do it. Here are the steps which you need to perform:

1) Download and install GIMP if you have not already done so.

2) Download Resynthesizer plugin from GIMP website.

3) Open GIMP and find the location of the plugins folder: You can do that by going to: Edit –> Preferences –> Folders –> Plug-Ins

Locate plugins folder in GIMP

4) Go to the first location, For Example, C:\Users\maneesh$\.gimp-2.8\plug-ins (The location must be different on your computer, do accordingly).

5) Now, copy the files from the Resynthesizer plugin which you downloaded:

Copy files from Resynthesizer plugin which you downloaded

6) and paste it on the location described on Step -4.

Paste it on location described on Step 4

7) Close and open GIMP.

8) That’s it. The Resynthesizer plugin has been successfully added to your GIMP software. Now, we will remove the date and time stamp from an image. Open the image from which you wan to remove the date and time stamp. For Example, lets take this image:

Open image fto remove date and time stamp

9) Click on the Rectangle Select Tool from the Toolbox:

Click on Rectangle Select Tool from Toolbox

10) Select the region where the date and time stamp is imprinted by using the Rectangle Select Tool:

Select region where date and time stamp is imprinted

11) Go to: Filters –> Enhance –> Heal selection from the top GIMP menu and then click on Heal selection:

Click on Heal selection

12) You can leave the settings Content sampling width (pixels) to 50, Sample from All around and Filling oder to Random. Click on OK.

Click on OK

13) Now, wait for few seconds while Resynthesizer is synthesizing your image.

Resynthesizer is synthesizing your image

14) Date and time stamp is now successfully removed from the image:

Date and time stamp is successfully removed from image

15) Go to File from the top GIMP menu and click on Export As:

Go to File from top GIMP menu and click on Export As

16) Name your file and select a location under the left Places menu, where you want to save your file. Click on Export.

Name your file and select a location under left Places menu

17) Make sure that you select the Quality as 100 and then click on Export.

Select Quality as 100 and then click on Export

18) That’s it. You have successfully removed the date and time stamp from your image by using GIMP. For Example, the new image without the date and time stamp looks like:

New image without date and time stamp

For the sake of argument, some people want to keep the date and time on the picture to know when the image was taken, Actually, you don’t have to do that, you can simply right click on the image and click on Properties. Go to Details tab:

To know date when the picture was taken

Here, you can see the date and time when the image was taken.

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8 thoughts on “Remove Date And Time Stamp From Image For Free Using GIMP”

    1. Hi Terry, please make sure:

      1) You have installed the Resynthesizer plugin as mentioned in Step 2 – Step 5.

      2) You have to first select the date region in the image as described in Step 9 – Step 10, otherwise it will be displayed as gray in Filters –> Enhance.

  1. Awesome thank you! Took I bit of tweaking at steps 4-5-6 but have sorted now and this works perfectly – and it’s free. Thanks again 🙂

  2. Thank you for this post. Because of its clarity, it actually taught me about much more than the apparent subject. Technical writing at its best! (As a professional technical writer with many years experience, I do a lot of griping about the quality of the writing on the web. It’s only fair to acknowledge the good stuff too).

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