hide a person's face

[Charliedelta]

I need to post a picture of a boat for a friend as a listing on a website. I will need to make sure he is not recognizable, so I thought I'd put a black spot on his face (or a white one, or blur it out).

The question is, once I do it, can someone potentially download the picture and remove the spot to see the face? Is it just a fantasy or is it actually possible?

Would all the possible ways to hide the face work the same in terms of how impossible it is to reverse the process?

Thanks

 

[jman6785]

I doubt it. But change the file name as well as the exif data. And destroy the original you should be fine.

 

[Big Mike]

If you are really that worried about it (is this person wanted?) then you could copy and paste the photo into a new document/canvas, thereby breaking any link to the original photo and it's EXIF information.

 

[sm4him]

^ +1 to what Big Mike said. That level of concern about making sure nobody can reverse the process and see his face makes ME think maybe he STOLE the boat. Or stole something else, and escaped on the boat.
I just can't imagine any other scenario under which someone might possibly go to the trouble of even attempting to reverse a blur/white spot/black spot on the person's face.

But at any rate, as Mike says, once you've made the change, copy and paste the whole thing into a new document/file, make sure there's no EXIF information, and rename it "MikeSmithboat.jpg"--unless the guy's name is Mike Smith, then name it "EvanBeauregardsboat.jpg." :lmao:

 

[Dima]

Once you put something over his face and save it in a format that doesn't support layers (jpg for example) - it is impossible to remove it (since those replaced pixels actually don't exist anymore in the new file). EXIF information information has nothing to do with it, although it can reveal the location if geotagging was on.

 

[sm4him]

Once you put something over his face and save it in a format that doesn't support layers (jpg for example) - it is impossible to remove it (since those replaced pixels actually don't exist anymore in the new file). EXIF information information has nothing to do with it, although it can reveal the location if geotagging was on.

The suggestion to strip the EXIF data has nothing to do with restoring pixels--it's just that if you're THAT paranoid about this individual possibly being identified, you might as well remove the EXIF data just to be sure nothing in it can be used to figure out who or where that person is. It seems like a pretty absurd stretch, but this whole thing seems like a pretty absurd stretch to me, so there's that.

 

[Derrel]

SNIP>>>rename it "MikeSmithboat.jpg"--unless the guy's name is Mike Smith, then name it "EvanBeauregardsboat.jpg." :lmao:

Ahhhh, your criminal enterprise learnin' done ya' good,Sharon! lol...you made me laugh on that...

By the way...there's a good sort of boat-centric movie named "Mud", with Matthew MacConaughey...Mud (2012) - IMDb

 

[Big Mike]

Once you put something over his face and save it in a format that doesn't support layers (jpg for example) - it is impossible to remove it (since those replaced pixels actually don't exist anymore in the new file). EXIF information information has nothing to do with it, although it can reveal the location if geotagging was on.

That's what I thought, but I have seen that some JPEG images will maintain a small preview image.

There was someone on a forum (not this one) who claimed they could uncover or undo digital edits (like showing someone's face which had been covered). It impressed a few people, but it quickly became apparent that he was just using an EXIF viewer to get a 'preview' of the original photo. If someone had stripped the EXIF, then his trick didn't work.