HIDING YOUR METADATA FROM OTHERS

©SCOTT KELBY

If you're providing photos to magazines, websites, or really just about anybody, you might want to strip out your metadata, or anybody with Photoshop will be able to learn a lot about you. For example, they'll know what kind of camera and lens you have (including make and model), what day you took the photo, edited the photo, and so on. Luckily, stripping the data out is easy, because you don't really strip it out. Just do this: Open the photo in Photoshop. Press Command-A (PC: Control-A) to select all, then press Command-C (PC: Control-C) to copy the photo into memory. Press Command-N (PC: Control-N) to create a new blank document in the same size, color mode, and resolution of your copied photo. Don't change anything; just click OK. When the new document appears, press Command-V (PC: Control-V) to paste your copied photo into your new document. Press Command-E (PC: Control-E) to merge this image layer with your Background layer, and save the file. The embedded EXIF data is left behind, giving you a clean image with no personal data attached.