Keep Camera Settings Only — Remove All Other EXIF Data
Photographers often face a dilemma when sharing images: they want to keep the technical shooting data that documents their craft — aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focal length, white balance, metering mode — but need to remove everything else that could compromise their privacy or expose personal information. Full metadata stripping solves the privacy problem but destroys the technical data. Sharing the original file preserves the camera settings but exposes GPS coordinates, serial numbers, and device identifiers.
Why Edit Photo Metadata?
The camera settings embedded in your photos tell the story of how you made each image. Aperture reveals your depth-of-field choices. Shutter speed shows how you handled motion. ISO indicates the lighting conditions and your noise tolerance. Focal length describes your framing perspective. White balance shows your color temperature decisions. Together, these fields are a technical record of your photographic decisions — valuable for your own learning, for teaching others, and for establishing your technical credibility in professional contexts. But the same EXIF structure that carries these valuable technical fields also carries GPS coordinates that reveal your shooting locations, camera serial numbers that can track you across the internet, owner names that identify your equipment, and software tags that reveal your editing tools. These fields have no educational or artistic value and create real privacy risks. The "Keep Camera Settings Only" preset draws a clear line between the technical metadata worth preserving and the personal metadata that should be removed. This preset is particularly useful for photography educators and workshop leaders who share example images with students. The camera settings are the whole point of the educational exercise, but the photographer's home address (via GPS), equipment inventory (via serial numbers), and identity (via owner name) should not be part of the lesson. Similarly, professional photographers who contribute to technique discussions in online forums can share their settings without exposing their location patterns. The binary editing approach is essential here because photographers sharing technical data care deeply about image quality. Any re-encoding would undermine the purpose of sharing — you cannot demonstrate the quality of a particular aperture/ISO combination if the sharing process itself degrades the image. Our tool guarantees zero quality loss because only the metadata segment is modified.
How It Works
Upload your JPEG images by dragging them onto the editor or selecting them from your device. The tool reads each file as a binary buffer and parses the complete EXIF data structure using piexifjs. It then applies an allow-list approach, preserving only the fields in the technical camera settings category. Preserved fields include: ExposureTime, FNumber, ExposureProgram, ISOSpeedRatings, ExposureBiasValue, MaxApertureValue, MeteringMode, LightSource, Flash, FocalLength, FocalLengthIn35mmFilm, WhiteBalance, DigitalZoomRatio, SceneCaptureType, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness, LensModel, LensMake, ColorSpace, and image dimension fields. The Orientation tag is also preserved for correct display. All other fields are removed: GPS data, serial numbers, camera owner name, timestamps, software tags, MakerNote, thumbnail images, and any other identifying or non-technical fields. The cleaned metadata is serialized and written back into the JPEG file. Image data is never touched — zero quality loss guaranteed. Download your files ready for sharing in photography communities.
More Editing Options
This page is optimized for keep camera settings only. Our full EXIF editor supports custom field editing, 5 preset templates, and batch processing across multiple JPEG files — all with zero quality loss.
Frequently Asked Questions
What camera settings are preserved?
Aperture (FNumber), shutter speed (ExposureTime), ISO (ISOSpeedRatings), focal length, white balance, metering mode, flash status, exposure program, exposure bias, lens model, lens make, color space, and image orientation. These are the technical fields photographers share and discuss.
What is removed?
GPS/location data, camera serial numbers, body and lens serial numbers, camera owner name, all timestamps (date taken, date digitized), software identification, MakerNote (manufacturer-specific data), image unique IDs, embedded thumbnails, and any other non-technical metadata.
Why not just strip all metadata?
Full metadata stripping removes the technical camera data that has educational and social value in photography communities. If you share images on Flickr, 500px, or photography forums, other photographers appreciate seeing your camera settings. This preset lets you share that data while keeping your personal information private.
Are timestamps removed?
Yes. Date/time fields are removed because they can help identify your location when combined with photo content. If you need to preserve the date for organizational purposes, use our custom editor to selectively keep timestamp fields while removing other personal data.
Does this affect image quality?
No. The tool modifies only the EXIF metadata segment using binary editing. Image data — pixels, compression, color — is never decoded or re-encoded. Output quality is identical to input quality with zero loss.
Can I batch process with this preset?
Yes. Upload multiple JPEG files and they are all processed with the same "keep camera settings" profile. Free users can process up to 10 images per day (5 for anonymous), and Pro subscribers ($10/month) get unlimited daily usage.
Will Flickr and 500px read the preserved EXIF data?
Yes. Flickr, 500px, and other photography platforms read standard EXIF fields to display camera settings alongside your images. The preserved fields (aperture, ISO, shutter speed, focal length, lens model) will display correctly on these platforms after processing.
Explore Our Other Tools
Need more image processing?