How do I delete metadata that appears on my digital photos?

Q  Is it possible to remove the metadata from a digital photo so that the camera and the settings used are hidden?
Andrew Currie

A  Yes, though the precise process depends on the software used – and you didn’t tell us anything at all about your computer. Fortunately, the process is broadly the same across all popular versions of Windows.

First, find and right–click the photo concerned, and choose Properties from the pop–up menu. Then, in Windows XP, click the Summary tab followed by the Advanced button. In Vista and Windows 7, choose the Details tab instead.

In all cases, here you’ll find a list of the metadata Windows is able to decipher. Most of it should be editable – just click to select the relevant field and type or choose a new option, as appropriate.

Both Vista and Windows 7 include a metadata ‘scrubbing’ tool that can be used to wipe every last piece of metadata from a file, if that’s what you would like to do. Follow the procedure above and, on the Details tab, click ‘Remove Properties and Personal Information’ link at the bottom.

Then, in the Remove Properties box, choose the ‘Remove the following properties from this file’ radio button followed by the Select All button and click OK to erase all metadata.

Alternatively, keep the ‘Create a copy with all possible properties removed’ radio button selected and Windows will do just that, placing a replica image with a ‘Copy’ suffix into the same folder.