Removing Timestamp

This script removes the timestamp imprinted on photos by digital cameras.
A friend had more than 400 photos with such a timestamp so I tried to get rid of it in a fast way. The script is a little quick'n'dirty but in most cases it's doing the job just fine. Better than I thought in the first place...

The procedure:

1. select the area with the timestamp (manually but optional)
2. select the color of the timestamp in your selection
3. add alpha channel to layer (transparent background)
4. remove the timestamp
5. duplicate the layer to background
6. interchange pixels near the timestamp gap (multiple times)
7. meld the pixels a bit
8. duplicate the layer with offset around the gap (multiple times)
9. merge all layers together

Clearly I didn't want to load all the photos manually, that's why wrote a script for batch processing. It processes all photos within a specified directory and selects the area with the timestamp. This script is no real Gimp plugin script. It's just pure python...

Install:

Copy the python_remove_timestamp.py into ~/gimp-2.6/plug-ins/ and make it executable
The batch loader can be placed where you want

Use:

• the plugin can be loaded within Gimp menu: Python-Fu --> Remove timestamp
• the batch loader should be opened from the console:
  gimp -i --batch-interpreter python-fu-eval --batch - < remove_timestamp_batch.py

UPDATE 2010-01-13: Because of the troubles with Python I've adapted the script also to Scheme.

UPDATE 2010-11-20: Fixed some bugs and set a larger timestamp selection in batch script.