How to hide the number plate in a car photo
In a listing, a visible number plate is within reach of everyone who opens it. Hiding it is not compulsory, but it is a simple precaution, and the vehicle's condition shows just the same.
Why hide the number plate
The plate ties the photos to your vehicle wherever they appear, even after the listing comes down.
It can also be copied onto another vehicle. This is called plate cloning: whoever drives with the copy can land fines and tolls that are not theirs on the real owner.
For someone looking for a vehicle, the plate adds nothing: what matters shows in the photos and reads in the description.
Blurring it by hand in an editor
In an image editor, you can put a rectangle over the plate or blur it, photo by photo. It works, but takes time when there are many, and it is easy to miss one where the plate shows small or at an angle. If you go that way:
- Blur it hard: a lightly blurred or pixelated plate can still be read.
- Do it on every photo of the front and rear, three-quarter shots included.
- Keep the originals: if you need them later, for the insurance for example, you still have them.
Lightly pixelated: still readable
Hidden by CarStudio
Hiding it automatically
CarStudio's Hide plates finds the plate in every photo and blurs it within the plate itself until it is unreadable, without touching the light, colour or framing. You upload all the photos at once and download them ready.
A photo with no visible plate costs no credits. Even so, check the before and after of each one before you use it: a small, tilted, dirty or partly covered plate can slip through, as can another vehicle's in the background.
OriginalBefore you put the photos online
- Check the front and rear in every photo, three-quarter shots too.
- Look for other vehicles' plates in the background.
- Do not show the registration document or other papers of the vehicle, and take them off the dashboard before photographing the interior.
- Avoid photographing the chassis number (VIN) up close.