Remove a Date Stamp From a Photo
That orange date stamp in the corner of old point-and-shoot photos — and the timestamp some phones and dashcams burn in — is printed straight into the pixels, so cropping is usually the only 'fix' people find, and it costs part of the shot. WatermarkRemoverAI inpaints the digits out instead and rebuilds the corner, keeping your full framing. It handles the characteristic glow of a segmented LED-style date without leaving a faint ghost of the numbers.
How to remove a date stamp from a photo
Upload or scan the photo
Add the digital photo or a scan of a print. The date stamp is usually in a bottom corner, often orange.
Cover the digits and their glow
Brush over all the numbers plus the soft glow around them — old date stamps bleed slightly into the image, and missing the glow leaves a haze.
Download the restored photo
Export with the corner rebuilt and full framing intact — no crop needed.
Good to know
Old date stamps glow into the image — mask the halo as well as the digits, or a faint haze remains. Removing the printed date doesn't delete the capture date stored in the file's EXIF metadata.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why not just crop the date stamp out?
Cropping throws away part of your composition and doesn't help when the stamp sits over the subject. Inpainting removes just the digits and rebuilds that corner, so you keep the full frame.
The date stamp glows into the photo — will a ghost remain?
Only if you mask the numbers too tightly. The orange LED-style stamp bleeds a soft halo into surrounding pixels; brush over the glow as well as the digits and the corner comes back clean.
Does it work on scanned prints from film cameras?
Yes. Scan the print, upload the image, and remove the burned-in date the same way. Grain and slight scan blur around the stamp are reconstructed along with the corner.
Can it remove a timestamp from a dashcam or CCTV frame?
For a single still, yes — upload the frame and mask the timestamp bar. For a full clip, use the video remover so the timestamp is cleaned across every frame.
Will removing the stamp lose the date information?
The visible printed date is gone, but many files still hold the capture date in EXIF metadata separately. If you need the date, note it before removing; the tool only edits the visible pixels.
Related Guides
Automate it with the API
Send a file, get a job id back, poll for the clean result. Same AI engine as the web tool, in two requests.
curl -X POST https://api.watermarkremoverai.com/v1/watermark/remove-image/ \
-H "Authorization: YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
-F "files=@photo.jpg" \
-F "auto_detect=true"
# => {"uuid": "..."}
# Poll for the result
curl -X POST https://api.watermarkremoverai.com/v1/watermark/results/ \
-d "uuid=..."
import requests
API = "https://api.watermarkremoverai.com/v1/watermark"
headers = {"Authorization": "YOUR_API_TOKEN"}
with open("photo.jpg", "rb") as f:
job = requests.post(API + "/remove-image/",
headers=headers,
files={"files": f},
data={"auto_detect": "true"}).json()
result = requests.post(API + "/results/",
data={"uuid": job["uuid"]}).json()
print(result)
Prefer a manual mask? Send mask=@mask.png instead of auto_detect, or pass mask_x / mask_y / mask_width / mask_height (add mask_is_percentage=true for percentages). Optional dilation=5 grows the masked area.
Ready to clean it up?
Upload, mark the area, and download the clean result. No account needed to try it free.
Open the Tool