Guess as a professional photographer, I will stop online proofing and sneak peeks. Eventually the thieves will only succeed in hurting themselves.
.... no more proofs from me. Congrats!

Why don't you just call this F#ck the Photographers software so they can't make a living. In fact, love it that you are using a Shrek photo on your pop-up - illegally I might add.

Legal or not who among us hasn't done a Google image search, found the perfect image for our Powerpoint, newsletter etc. only to find it had a pesky watermark stamped on there. I've removed them manually several times with programs like Paintshop Pro, with sometimes okay results...so go ahead throw me in jail, I dare ya.

Anyway sorry I missed this would've like to have given it a try.

as a professional photographer, i cannot believe that a product like this is out there. watermarks, dates, etc are put on images for a reason. doesnt this violate copyright law in some way??? amazing.

Many thanks to those who made suggestions for easy to use editing programs. I'm still checking them all out!

All the best!

well downloaded it yesterday,wasn't expecting a miracle but it can remove watermarks decently.Only when picture has too many colors around watermark it fails,so that's it.2nd program i found useful from here.thanks GAOTD :)

Interesting program. You can remove watermarks. But why is this program not included in the Batch Picture Protector program from the same seller ? Can Batch Picture Protector make watermarks strong enough so it cant be removed ?

i downloaded, installed, and activated photostamp without errors...

the program is very simplistic...

there is a button for removal and quick removal of "stains" which i found to be very useful in editing a very old scanned photograph of my deceased grandparents...

i am a novice in photo-retouching and this is my first photo-editing program...

for the next improvement, i suggest to have more toolbars to finely adjust some edges...
(i have not found one and forgive my shortcomings if there is one...)

i am giving this a thumbs up...so thanks gaotd and softorbits...

Good S/W. helped me to clear out some blemish in few pictures like a charm. easy to use and works well !

I forgot how good InPaint was. Thanks for giving that for free.

To funny, just about 2 weeks ago they gave away software that helped you put watermarks on photos. Now you can have the software to take off watermarks....I love it

Try this: http://vicanek.de/plugins/wireworm.htm

Simple, perfect results, free, tiny download. Check out his other plugins as well. Well worth it.

My first trial was an attempt to remove the date stamp from a picture I took last Mother's Day. I tried selecting for it by color. It seemed to recognize the color, but did not indicate that anything was selected and did not remove the date stamp at all. Will have to experiment with it some more to see if I can get it to work.

I am still undecided about trying this but I do have a question. I have some photos that are very old and have gotten a few scratches and what not on them. Unfortunately I cannot afford to buy a program right now to fix these. Does anyone know of a good program that can repair things such as scratches, dust, maybe even fix pictures that are too dark/too dark or have too much of a glare on them? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Alright. This thing does what it says. Obviously the less area the offensive junk consumes, the less the program has to invent. And the tighter you define the free-form area, the more accurate the result.

It doesn't respond well to Save-as on a read-only file. That produces an error dialog box with no text in it, but once you know that and remove that attribute from the source files, you're good to go.

Nice job on this one!

#38 Removing a date is totally different than removing a watermark which is normally placed there by the original creator/photographer to "protect" the image from being used by others.

You obviously confused what is generally meant by a watermark on an image.

Removing dates oin your photos is no issue or problem.

Removing watermarks so you can use the image/photo yourself even though not your image/photo originally is actually unlawful (although rife on the internet)

I actually find it disturbing that any program promotes itself as being able to remove watermarks.

If it helps at all...

If you're trying to make up for *partially* missing image data [e.g. a faded area], &/or trying to remove something like a stain or watermark, remember that the std. RGB color model you'll most often use in an image editor has 3 color channels -- sometimes you can get what you need from one of those channels, & though it can be some work, some data can be better than none. Image editing apps vary on how easily they'll let you access the individual channels -- sometimes you might have to use a copy that you've converted to CMYK [used for printing presses etc.].

When/if all data is missing, like you might get with a torn print or when part of the print has faded completely, I usually start by trying to find something similar somewhere in the image, then copy & paste a ragged selection into that area, more than once if necessary, then set about using cloning tools on top of that base filler. Our eyes are designed to pick out patterns, so I try to always use ragged selections rather than easy to spot shapes like circles & squares. With cloning brushes I use partial transparency + feathering & dab rather than stroke for the same reason... if you don't have the data you can't put it back *exactly as it was*, but by avoiding patterns you can usually make the eye not notice. FWIW if I use something like a blend tool on a repair, often I'll later apply it to the entire image too, & for the same reason -- if there's an area without grain it can draw attention to the repair, maybe subconsciously. Tools like healing brushes can work if there's some data in the area you're repairing -- that's something that tools like Photo Stamp Remover or an imperfect Inpaint repair can maybe help with [I'm assuming that if either worked you wouldn't be doing it manually].

I don't like to enhance/optimize until repairs are done since that can lead to fewer colors & less grain, meaning in effect less random data I can make use of... when you're done if you want you can add the overall softer look you see on airbrushed magazine covers. Remember too that when you're pasting a selection you can often distort it to better fit [depends on software -- I like Corel Photopaint particularly well for this]. It also helps I think to remember what tools do -- not what they're for. A maybe example with Mother's Day coming up, after selecting/copying someone in a photo you can minimally & strategically shrink that object/selection, then use the same techniques as above to make the background *fit*, removing the old, maybe slightly wider original. Don't make it too obvious or mom might be insulted, but many a mom's been thrilled with a sort of glamor print making her look what she feels is her best. :-)

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#33: "... altering an digital image is a task for a professional graphic artist, if you want professional results..."

With No disrespect intended I beg to differ -- since PCs started getting more common/popular in the late 80s - early 90s, the difference between a creative pro & everyone else is the pro regularly gets paid for doing the same thing. That or they get paid to teach others -- a career in & of itself. ;-)

"... Your results depend on three things; the quality of the original, the quality of the software and the talent of the artist..."

Yes, the quality of the original can matter -- mostly it's having enough data to work with rather than how good/bad an image looks. Being artistic matters if/when you're creating your own, original work, but restoration, whether you're talking a fine oil painting or a faded print from an Instamatic is more technical expertise & practiced skills. As far as software goes, usually when someone says you have to have a certain app they're trying to sell me something, either the software itself or the notion that they're better having bought it themselves. ;-)

Truth is there have been & will likely continue to be an awful lot of very nice image editing/creation &/or graphics apps. P/Shop has its somewhat unique features, but the same can be said for much of their competition, free or payware.

nice idea but bad execution. can get better results by using photoshop

One of the problems I had was using the colour select tool. It was selecting sky when sand was the last sampled object. Closed it and re-opened it and colour sampler worked fine . Also realised that you can use several selection methods together and thus exclude parts of the picture from being quick edited or used as source. Select an area by rectangle or free form and select within that by colour and fuzziness till you get the object area by colour. The methods aren't either or but should be used together for better selection.

#31 - Thanks for your comment - Already use both Photoshop CS5 (medium level user) and Paint Shop Pro (More experienced user than Photoshop) although I always seem to go back to PSP 9 even though I have PSP X and PSP XI as well. Took me ages to move away from using PSP 7 all the time, so guess that is repeating itself with PSP 9.

Photoshop is great and you are right, lots of things one can do, but I was really wondering about basically simple corrections to photos. (ie Date removal on more recent photos, or removing a single water stain in one corner or single crease line in a non critical part or similar on older photos) Any correction required that is more than a simple thing I wouldn't even bother with Inpaint (or anything like it) and simply go with either PSP or PS.

Guess I was more wondering if this is any improvment on Inpaint or simply another similar program which similar limitations.

Thanks for your input, appreciated.

@my own (#25) - With my best intentions of help directed mainly at #8's(BritinSA) Q - I believe I had most incredible "blond moment" mistaking tears for tears:)) Only because in description of Photo Stamp Remover 3.1 they were next to.. wrinkles and not.. scratches? Not to worry, I'm Lite (like that) by default. LOL

Ok #12 again. Forgot the excellent image resize guide
http://tintguide.com/load/ImageResizeGuide-English-Lite.exe
The smart patch tool in that is circular. You set its radius then place it over all or part of the area you want to change and click. it then acts like a window on the area you move the circle to and shows it at varied angles etc when ever what is showing looks a good match click it again to replace the original selection. Its not the main point of the program which is a better version of Inpaint's Resizer stablemate but does a good job. The lite version of the program is always free.

Installed todays prog in sandboxie. There are various ways to select. Theres a free form select tool thats a bit like paint shop pro. Theres a rectangular selection tool and theres a colour select thats a magic wand type. Tested it with a desert island to remove a palmtree. Have previously used this with inpaint and photowipe.
Unlike photowipe you can keep removing repeatedly. Initial thought was i preferred inpaint and this is clunky BUT this has potential. Sometimes almost despite itself. It feels as though its stuck sometimes, quick remove was sometimes better than slow and sometimes it even seemed to fill from the area i wanted to remove. AND YET select a small area that is part of a larger area using the colour select tool and keep hitting quick remove, almost instant, and gradually the sky inflated balloon like to remove the branches and leaves. There may be a knack to using this that comes with practise. Also if its specifically written with watermarks in mind it may be conceptually different from Inpaint etc by intention. I like in Inpaint version 3 that you can move the bounding box to influence texture selection. This needs more work as sometimes its baffling what it does BUT if you don't take it this this time and it comes back more robust in the future give it a chance. The concept is good and there are aspects which developed would be a different approach to some of the competition.

Useful for taking dates off photos - does that very well.

I installed and tested using many types of pics. Works GREAT as long as you only have 1 primary color in the back ground. If you have multiple colors it does OK. If you zoom in you can notice where the stamp was. BTW I was removing the typcial red time/date stamp from photos.

Great little program. I am going to keep and use it for quick fixes. If I truely need the stamp removed I will likely still use my Adobe PS.

Inpaint is best and the easiest software for removing watermarks and unwanted items from the pictures most efficiently and cleanly and its way simpler in use.. thanx GAOTD for INpaint..

@#13(Eddie) I totally disagree with your point about removing water marks. My wife and all her friends are Filipino, they sometimes use the "display date" settings on their cameras, and as such I ended up with dozens of pictures of our wedding that had unwanted dates on the photos(and unfortunately many of them had the wrong date set on their camera). Inpaint worked well when I removed them, unfortunately I didn't have my laptop when it was last offered and my wife seriously infected our desktop so I had to totally reformat, as such I ended up losing it. As the majority of the reviewers I trust have said it's less then impressive. I will hold off on this program.

Didn't remove my watermarks very well after using various setting for an hour. Not even close to the clarity the demo showed.

Great program fast and accurate.

@8 have a look a Zoner Photo Studio 13, free to use, best Photo Programme i`ve used

also have a look at "Gizmo" Free software at http://www.techsupportalert.com/

Photo Stamp Remover may work to partially remove certain watermarks/logos on certain images. It does not work like Inpaint or similar apps/plugins, using seam carving to replace an object with the predominant background. I tried it with the 1st watermarked image here at meritline.com [ http://goo.gl/q7QzS ] & instead of replacing the gray text with the white background it added some strange black shapes as fill. I also tried removing the tip of a castle spire against a pure black background, & the selection area was filled with odd shapes the same color as the spire. I think what it does is try to fill the selection area with more-or-less random pixels/shapes from the closest, most active area outside the selection, & I think that it purposely ignores more solid colors/areas because they're more likely to be part of a logo or watermark. Photo Stamp Remover did not like to handle larger image files, crashed on me more than once, has a fairly poor set of selection tools, & only lets you set "Fill texture size" & "Quality" under the Tools menu -> Options. It *might* still be a useful tool in a situation where something like Inpaint failed [& you didn't want to fix the image manually], &/or when you want to do a batch of images & best quality isn't your main concern.

Installation adds the program's folder, ~4 MB in 24 files, plus about 200-300 new registry entries -- XP in this case had more than win7 64. Note that Photo Stamp Remover phones home every time it's started, & while there's no way to turn off auto-update checking in-program, you can turn it off in the registry -> HKCU\ Software\ softorbits\ StampRemover\ disableUpdates = 1 .

My 2 cents: altering an digital image is a task for a professional graphic artist, if you want professional results. It's not just a point and click operation. Your results depend on three things; the quality of the original, the quality of the software and the talent of the artist. Judging from the comments here, you all may get differing results depending upon mostly your own skill at fiddling with a digital image. For superior results, I have yet to find a freebee that comes close to Photoshop, in any of its many versions, all the way back to 4.0, all were/are superior at matching, masking, and altering pixels so that the original looks unblemished. Any other program will not serve you as well. Paint is close, but PS, especially the newer CS series is what you need for precise, professional results. This program looks fine if you just want to clunk out a piece of a photo.

installed on win7 64bit. removed date from photo worked great.

#1: "Well, i download it just because “that can remove watermarks”, no other purpose. If it can remove the watermark on my video, i’d like to pay for it!"

The only 100% sure fire way to remove watermarks from video is to crop it, if/when the watermark or whatever is towards one of the edges of course. You can search sites like videohelp.com for "logo removal" or "remove watermark" or something similar & find some discussion with alternatives you can try, like some of the filters available for VirtualDub. If the logo or watermark isn't constant, e.g. the channel logo or ad on many recorded TV shows/movies, you can try overlaying that section of a video frame without the logo, & I've seen plug-ins advertised for video editors like Premiere Pro that use seam carving for that sort of thing. Unless the video is really pristine however, unless it's really great quality, the pixels will be different from one frame to the next, even with a plain background used for something like a talking head -- that means it's very easy to create your own quite visible patterns of distortion, e.g. a pulsing blob that can look worse than leaving the logo intact. Finally, you really don't want to manually edit every individual frame if you can help it -- it can be tremendously tedious & extremely time consuming.

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#13: "... can anyone point me to something that does a better job of simple “repairs” to images and photos..."

I don't think that there's *One* sure fire way or app or plugin that works every time for every photo restoration, but you can look for scanners that include Digital ICE [Wikipedia http://goo.gl/CmIMJ ] & that might get you part way there. Also there's more info available for different methods/techniques using Photoshop than any other image editor I think -- if you're doing a lot of restoration while expensive it might be your best bet assuming you're willing to seek out some of that info & work at learning.

* * *

#17: "Although video is a sequence of stills at the point of origin, only professional video schemes normally record this as a collection of files where each frame is an individual, full-res file."

Some image editors will import video as-is & allow you to edit individual frames. The free VirtualDub also lets you convert back/forth, from video to stills & back, as do several NLEs [Non Linear Editors] -- it's actually fairly common, but just not used as much as it used to be say 10-15 years ago when PC video editing apps weren't as sophisticated. Most all video itself is nothing more than a string of stills that works the same way as a hand-drawn flip book to give our eyes the illusion of motion -- it's just much more tedious to work with it that way, as individual stills, & of course storage requirements can become immense [e.g. for 30 fps, 30 720x480 .tif files = ~15.5 MB, & times 60 (for a full minute) that's 930 MB!].

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#20: "... Watermarks and other methods of marking photos thinking they are safe from piracy is just folly..."

Most locks just keep an honest person honest -- they limit temptation. They can also discourage a thief when for example the car parked next to yours is unlocked. IMHO same principles apply to watermarking.

Removed time stamp easily.
Great program

@Rizla01(#6)thanks for pasting the (cnet?) review, which pretty much sums up my impression too, but I believe it is polite to credit and/or link when quoting other people's work ;-)
@BritinSA (#8) Picasa has a "retouch" button in the basic fixes tab, which can do this sort of thing manually (click to select area then move cursor around to select what to fill it with before clicking again)

Easy install on Win7x64. Runs fine & program easy to use.
This program has same problem as most of these programs do, after you select the area to cleanup it guess' at the area on which side of the selection to clone. This program seems to clone the area directly to the left of the selection. That's OK if your removing a piece of paper in a field, but not in a complex photo, like trying to remove a person from a busy photo.
Recommend for simple photos & a photo editing program with a cloning stamp for more complex photos.
SUGGESTION: After having selected the area to remove then show the area that program is going to use to insert. If not the colors or object that I want to be inserted I can drag that selection to the part of the photo I want cloned in. Just a simpler, faster type of cloning stamp.

Works well enough for me. Usually I use PaintShop Pro X or Photoshop to do this kind of work - but this nifty program does a fairly good job. On 10 photographs the results on 5 were 100% as good as Paintshop/Photoshop; the other 5 photos needed a lot of work and 3 of those this program couldn't handle - results on those 3 were really mangled. Still, though, this is a keeper for me - for quick jobs. Decent price too. Thanks GAOTD

Installed on XP swiftly and activated without problems but thats where the good news ends.

I tested this on a privately watermarked image with a blank background and tried to remove the small watermarked wording...It was very sloppy and left a bigger mess than the original, after several attempts to clean it up (Using small areas at time plus the whole area) I gave up and then compared it with Inpaint which I have from a previous giveaway. Inpaint removed the watermark completely and cleanly without any residue first attempt.
Conclusion: Inpaint 10/10 - Photo Stamp Remover 2/10

Sorry softorbits but I'm sticking with a program that does exactly what it says, unlike your version.

First of all - the Description "can remove...wrinkles, tears and other unwanted artifacts" is simply hilarious! Tears? One should never remove tears (that's my Plea!!) -- I too prefer "Inpaint" to Today's Offer, oops, should say preferred, lost it in different PC:( -- For removing Blemishes and Dust - FxFoto (even Standard Edition, which is free) has excellent intuitive tool for that purpose, I personally prefer it to PaintShop Pro's, which I naturally still use for more painstaking jobs etc.
As for Cloning Tool (and generally very simple, but amusing "cosmetic jobs") I recently came across prog called Beauty Guide Lite 1.3 - it's Cloning tool is for a change "interactive" and let's you see the result "on the spot" (sometimes literally:) when searching for the best match, but being what it is - this is for Folks who have no time to play about further..
I hope these two Programs of the top of my head (without being disrespectful to Today's Offer) - can help Someone in removing "unwanted artifacts".., but not tears:)

Even Photoshop CS5 doesn't always get it right with its "Content Aware" feature. I use it from removing the occasional unwanted or unavoidable object in my photos. Yet I suspect overall, looking at these reviews, that this software is strictly amateur hour. It's not an easy feature to implement so I'll give the developers credit for trying. It's like the old joke about Carnegie Hall.

One only can work with the pixels one is given in the end. The process needs practice to be made perfect. For most programs this will never be perfected. This is the reason people put watermarks on Photos.

Download, instal and registered easy on XP sp3. I believe the gotd Inpaint is much better so will most likely uninstall this one.
Even better imo is Sagelight Image Editor but it's not free. I don't really remove water marks but I do clean up lots of pics removing unwanted objects and book scans cleaning up marks on a page. I tested this on on removing my watermark from a pic and removing an object from one of my pics. Neither function was great and results needed some editing to blend in better. Standard remove is very slow but more precise than the quick removal imo. Their price sounds fair for what the software offers. Definitely a keeper if you don't already have cloning type software. Ir's not quite as "automatic" as implied in their advert. Still gets a thumbs up as an entry level tool for image editing. Not complicated at all to understand and use.

Photo Stamp Remover is flakier than I thought. In Windows Task Manager, I noticed that it left a couple of processes running (StampRemover.exe), each utilizing all CPU of a core, so there is some risk to installing this if you don't check Task Manager and make sure that all of its processes have terminated after you close it.

the results were very poor installed okay on 64 bit windows but not a patch on inpaint i uninstalled after testing how its receiving an high thumbs up rating i don't know the developers must be doing it themselves.

I also use INPAINT for this kind of work. I tried this on my older computer and it works but not quality. Inpaint with a lirrle practice can do a lot better. People make a very big mistake in trying to restore too large an area or to complexed large rea.

Watermarks and other methods of marking photos thinking they are safe from piracy is just folly. If it is on the net it can be copied and altered by anyone and there is no way to ptevent this if someone wants it. If you want to keep it safe then keep it home and not on the net.

Absolutely satisfied by performance. Installed in Windows 7 with no problem. It removed text from a photo recreating the background better than I could ever do manually. Can save hours of work.

if reoving watermark form an image u don't have permisssion to sale it is still illgla without watermark cause soon as person takes it it is copyrighted by law even wihout a copyright symbol on it

i never read comments once i post a comment so i won't ever see it lol

The help file seems correct when it says that Quick Remove is fast but not very accurate. I didn't find anything in my pictures where that function produced usable results. The slower Remove function took very much longer, but di produce acceptable results.

Looking at your results would be nicer if there were a way to remove the selection outline. This is nearly imperative in the case of a Free-Form selection that has been carefully drawn around an object.

The normal price seems very reasonable if I need to buy it in the future.

A brief note to Allin #3: Although video is a sequence of stills at the point of origin, only professional video schemes normally record this as a collection of files where each frame is an individual, full-res file. (The Kodak .cin [Cineon] and the more widespread .dpx files are set up for that.) The average user is much more likely to have one of the myriad of compressed and bundled formats where a whole clip is contained in a single file. Even with the file-per-frame situation I suspect batch mode might not deal with it really well for any meaningful length of material. Remember that an hour of European video comprises 90,000 frames !

The demo video's demonstrator was moving the cursor extremely fast; so fast that I could not see which buttons were pressed, etc. The same thing occurred with the views.
This demo was terrible. It's not okay to use this speed to demonstrate to an unfamiliar viewer of this product. I was not able to learn any techniques. The speed needs to be slowed down! And, having voice-over would help a lot.
When I've viewed free videos at linda.com (I think that that's its name), the video and demo person go slowly and explain what's going on. I've learned much there.
In conclusion, I would not buy the Photo Stamp Remover 3.1 based on the unsatisfactory demo introduction to and learning experience of this product.

#11 No problems watching the demo and the "priview" using Windows 7.

#12 Thanks for your info, your post wasn't there when I posted my request but still be grateful for any further info which would still be useful if others can add to that already given.

Clean install. Too simple for me to bother with tutorial, but I always read the Help. Select or drag-and-drop photo(s), select area containing watermark with rectangle or free-form tool, select color (checkbox must be checked), there are a couple of self-explanatory fuzziness factors, you can drag the sliders (arrow keys work once has the focus) or enter values, press and hold Preview Selection button to see what it's going to remove, make fuzziness adjustments if necessary, then do Remove (very, very slow but better quality) or Quick Remove (low quality), Undo if unhappy, can do in sections, save when done. Under Tools, Options, there's a Fill Texture Size and a Quality selector.

I got very mixed results. This would have a very difficult time with sophisticated watermarks like those from Easy Watermark Studio. The two main problems were general flakiness, and problems with the algorithm on some backgrounds. The flakiness would be things like failing to do things unless I re-selected an area selection tool, even if I didn't change it, then go back to selecting the color or whatever. While I wouldn't expect this to do well against all backgrounds, it did pretty well against a grass background, except for using the wrong background for one part of one letter, which was easily fixed. The problem was the part of the watermark against a plain white background. With no fill selection, it kept replacing the watermark with other parts of the background rather than the white background. More flakiness, I tried changing the fill texture size, which didn't help much, but magically it worked when I changed it back, except then it went back to not working on subsequent sections.

On the plus side, this is cheap, but the flakiness and algorithms need to be improved. Installation is harmless, so you have nothing to lose by trying this (but be aware that it can be very, very slow).

#8, BritinSA, install whatever tools you want from Windows Live Essentials 2011, unless of course you're using XP, then you'll need the XP version (I neither know nor care what's in it). Windows Live Photo Gallery will edit photos. Select the photo, click the Edit tab for some editing tools, if you double-click a photo it will open by itself in the editor with more tools.