As usual when we register a program from SoftOrbits, whatever it is, we get thanked for registering Photo Resizer. Is it some kind of subliminal marketing strategy to engrave the name "Photo Resizer" in our brain so that we buy it someday, without knowing why? Let’s not be paranoid, it’s just negligence, which explains too the alarming window “Activation error. The license key has been already activated” which might appear at further openings. (Close it and don’t worry. Your key is still activated.)

Negligence again explains the absence of a changelog on SoftOrbits’ site (at the risk of being repetitive in my comments: ladies and gentlemen developers and webmasters, changelogs and differences between standard, pro etc are minimal information requirements!), so are there some major improvements, as suggested by the new version number? I didn’t notice any during the quick look I had, but for sure the only one I was really looking for is still missing: the ability to select where to pick replacement pixels instead of having the program automatically pick them in the immediate surroundings of the object to be removed, which can be adequate to erase a small date stamp or watermark (to be fair, as its name says, the main purpose of this program) on a more or less uniform background, but can prove totally inefficient for a more complex task.

Let’s say for instance that you are extremely proud of this panorama picture you once took of a grandiose sunset over the Grand Canal in Venice, but, for some very private reasons, you are now deeply convinced that the person smiling tenderly at you from the gondola in the foreground spoils the view. If there is nothing but water or sky around him/her, with Photo Stamp Remover he/she will gently dissolve in the dark water or evaporate in the blue sky, but if there is a palace, a church or a gondolier nearby he/she will be turned into a horrible jigsaw puzzle of little bits of stone, brick, human flesh etc. macerating in water, which might accurately reflect the way you now feel about this bas*rd/b*ch who didn’t deserve you anyhow, but will have a poor effect in your slideshow. With InPaint by TeoreX or Retouch Pilot by Two Pilots, to mention only two programs regularly offered here, you can replace whomever/whatever you consider an eyesore with whatever you choose from any part of the picture.

Still, Photo Stamp Remover has a couple of edges over its two competitors:

1/ It supports much more image formats (GIF, ICO etc.);
2/ It supports transparency (as InPaint did earlier, but no longer does) but not perfectly. It RETAINS transparency where it is originally but won’t CREATE transparency (i.e. transparent pixels picked in the source area become opaque when copied in the target area). But this is annoying only if you want to use it in conjunction with a more fully featured graphics program with layers.

If you already have the more comprehensive Photo Retoucher, also by SoftOrbits, and also offered here earlier, which features most of the tools of Photo Stamp Remover plus many others, what you will gain with this one are “magic wand” (selection by color), “quick remove” (beside just “remove”) and batch mode.

A few hints:

- Don’t look for an eraser or undo brush to modify your selection: there is none. Check the “deselect” box on the right and re-apply the brush over the parts to be excluded from the selection. Not very intuitive at first, but you get used to it.

- Clicking the “Original image” button allows you to toggle between original and modified image.

- Using Photo Stamp Remover is like throwing dice: you get a different result each time. So you can undo, try again, undo, try again… (your selection will stay) until you like what you see. “Quick remove” is faster, and doesn’t necessarily give less good results. But if you are a perfectionist, you will often have to finalize manually in a graphics software anyway – or work directly from one, using a clone stamp, layers etc.
Merry Christmas Eve to everybody from Paris!

ouialaraison  –  10 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+152)

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This has got to be my favorite comment I have ever read on this site, after years of coming here every day. Merry Christmas Eve :)

This has got to be my favorite comment I have ever read on this site, after years of coming here every day. Merry Christmas Eve :)
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levitiquetus  –  9 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+41)

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I gave this a thumbs down, because its sole purpose is to remove copyright stamps from images. As a photographer, who has seen the work of fellow photographers stolen, I believe that this type of software, like other pirating software, should be illegal.

Tom  –  10 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (-165)

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Hey @Tom it’s not actually illegal...It’s depend on individual how they use it...Everything has its own benefits and drawbacks, it’s completely about what you make out of it.... Photo Stamp Remover is just a simple image editing tool for those who wish to remove undesired effects from his/her snap...So stay Relax and enjoy it, after all it’s a Christmas time.

Hey @Tom it’s not actually illegal...It’s depend on individual how they use it...Everything has its own benefits and drawbacks, it’s completely about what you make out of it.... Photo Stamp Remover is just a simple image editing tool for those who wish to remove undesired effects from his/her snap...So stay Relax and enjoy it, after all it’s a Christmas time.
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Henry Wilson  –  10 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+64)

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A $50 joke from a developer seemingly incapable of engineering a product that can live up to the standards set by both freeware and commercialware.

Agonisingly slow to remove anything, too unintelligent to accurately recognize contiguous pixels, inadequately equipped with undo / redo facilities, and presented in a GUI long past its sell-by date, the wonder isn't that SoftOrbits thinks it can get $50 for this but that SoftOrbits thinks it actually has an offering worth using whether free or not.

I ran this software against Teorex's InPaint and Movavi's new Photo Editor. Reason for that choice is that Teorex pretty much pioneered the 'object removal' commercial sector, based on the original Open Source alogorithm, whilst Movavi's new-kid-on-the-block Photo Editor represents an exponential step forward in budget-priced image editing.

Teorex's InPaint allows the user to define the capture area (the area from which pixels will be copied into the object area selected for replacement.) In latest guise, that task is nothing like as easy as the way earlier versions allowed for capture adjustment via the Shift key and sizing handles. But at least it's there. By contrast, Movavi's relies on the intelligence of its engine -- and with good reason: Movavi's implementation and refinement of the seam carving alogorithm has never been bettered by any developer, anywhere. In comparison with those two, the SoftOrbits product seems to wish to appear intelligent but blatantly isn't: on test, the software had absolutely no idea of just how far it should be bringing in replacement pixels, the notion of contiguous sampling totally eluding it.

Absence of intelligence would be bad enough. But Photostamp Remover gets even worse: this has to be the slowest 'removal' software I've ever encountered. Sure, there's an elapsed time counter, but it's merely cosmetic: it doesn't work in this version just as it has never worked in any of its predecessors. Ticking off the seconds is a bit pointless anyway: this thing needs to have a replica of Big Ben plastered all over it, the better to mark not merely the passing of minutes but the elapse of entire quarter hours.

Fortunately, the difference in the result between standard removal and Quick removal appears to be non-existent, with the Quick option at least having the advantage of getting you much more speedily to the viewing of the unacceptable mess the 'removal' has created.

The Quick option is also helpful where you've defined multi-point 'removals' prior to going into the editing stage, because using the 'standard' mode here would likely involve a longer wait than there's been for Glenn Miller to land. Downside of that though is that the amount of visual mess thrown up -- it's notable, and noticeable, that Photostamp Remover is utterly incapable of doing what it promises first time around -- is never going to be cleaned up by an 'undo' function of strictly limited memory.

Thanks, then, GOTD, for the offer, but free or paid-for, Photo Stamp Remover is a non-starter.

Teorex's InPaint out-performs it in just about all ways (other than transparency retention, though even that's a moot point) but both InPaint and Photo Stamp Remover are rendered obsolescent by Movavi's Photo Editor which, at a mere $19.95, is the first commercial photo editor to be built specifically around "seam carving" whilst also incorporating an almost pro-level suite of image processing tools in a truly stylish GUI.

For those whose budget won't stretch as far as Movavi, then there's always Photoscape, nowadays the go-to FREE photo editing suite which in its latest version provides for both object removal and cloning. Versatile, comprehensive, gorgeous to look at, easy to use, and expertly engineered, the $00.00 Photoscape is everything which the $49.99 Softorbits PhotoStamp Remover is not.

MikeR  –  9 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+47)

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This has been offered several times . I still have an old version (ver 4.2 ). In it's HOMEPAGE there is a claim that Using Photo Stamp Remover, you can erase cleanly unwanted artifacts like date stamps, watermarks, logos and undesirable objects.
Face and skin imperfections, such as wrinkles, acne, and tattoos can be cleaned up too.

But to be honest this program couldn't meet all its claims. Okay, the program is very simple to use but the output can't be as good as you would have wanted. Basically what I've realized after several usage that It can remove the date stamp or simple text with a not bad output but its result after removal of any objects or even logos is just very poor ( tended to blur the portion,but didn't entirely remove its presence).

I feel that Teorex Inpaint has the edge over it when unnecessary object removal is the concern. Though for every case I take the assistance of clone stamp tool of any Editor to get a more perfect result.

I have still kept this program since 2011 as it sometimes serves some of my specific purposes .

Jahid  –  10 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+38)

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