Using AI to remove school photo watermarks

[marblyarch]

I’m surprised at how many people are doing this. Some school mums were discussing it after I mentioned forking out for DSs photographs (20 pounds for one digital image), sort of in a ‘why would you pay for them when ChatGPT removes the watermarks for free!’ I mentioned it later to my sister who proceeded to show me how she’d done it with my nieces school images! To be fair they looked great! No difference at all and she saved £££. But it just feels a bit off to me? If everyone starts doing it then professional school photos just won’t happen anymore…

I can understand school photos back in the day when not everyone had a camera or could afford to have film developed. Not really sure why they're necessary today. I never bought them. The photographers clearly didn't care that the subject had scruffy hair, a dirty face or their tie twisted, etc.

Agree it feels shitty, but like all industries, photographers will have to move with the times and diversify. My online business has been going for 15+ years and every 2-3 years I’ve had to completely rethink what I offer to keep up with the times and had my ideas ripped off. No difference for anyone else.

Our school gets a % of every school photo sold. I’m sure it’s only a small amount but every penny counts for them.

It's not ok to steal other people's work. The correct thing to do is take your own photo.

That's theft pure and simple.

Not only is it theft as other people have pointed out, but why are people uploading pictures of their kids to AI?!

Honestly have these parents been living under a rock. That picture can now be used for any purpose by the AI generator. Including child p*rn. It's diabolical.

Stop uploading pics of your kids to AI and to public social media accounts. Wild.

😂 pretty sure chatgpt isn't using uploaded school photos to make sexual abuse images of children as some kind of ai side hustle!

Well I hope y’all don’t remove the watermarks off other work too. The ‘they should move with the times’ doesn’t mean the artists/photographers should give their work away and using AI to remove protective marks is stealing. Shame on you.

Why doesn't your sister just take photos of her kids herself?

Why are you laughing? The superimposed the children's photos. So yes of course it could be used.

You do realise that Chat GPT has permission to do literally whatever it wants with your photos and information had soon as you upload it? So yes, it can indeed make child porn using your child’s face if it wants to. I literally implore you to read one singular news story about AI becoming uncontainable by its developers and have a crumb of critical thinking skills

It’s theft and removing the watermark doesn’t change the fact the photographer owns the image.

Also people are so relaxed about using AI and uploading their young children’s images to it. When we know Ai is used to deepfake and so on, using images it has access to and that’s been uploaded! Crazy all to save a bit of cash.

You need to do some reading up on the capabilities of AI.

I tried this just to see what would happen on an awful photo I would never want nor would I pay for it. It stated they couldn’t do that and AI wouldn’t remove the water mark so no idea how other people are actually doing this. It doesn’t seem right and I feel for photography with the move into digital

Why are you sure about that? I work on AI tech projects and you're absolutely incorrect. Once you've uploaded a photo of your child to AI you have no guarantee on how it will be used in the future. Your ignorance is pretty obnoxious.

I would never upload a photo of my child to AI precisely because I do know how it is being used.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crpdgz2nqe59o

It's a really shitty thing to do.

You're stealing from a small business, not a big company - I'd consider it a real low tbh and think it really shows up the parents that do this. If you do this, grow up.

I only buy school photos now and then tbh. Not sure about having them every year, we actually get lots of photos of them and their class at the end of the year in their workbooks.

I haven’t bought a school photo in ten years, I pass the link to grandparents and they can buy one should they wish. It just seems an INSANE amount of money when we nearly all have very high quality cameras in our pockets.

Its outdated and has fallen out of fashion for there to be a school picture, I can take much more candid and natural pictures that I adore for a fraction of the cost.

I do feel sorry for businesses who are suffering but it’s time to diversify, steeling is never a good look though, I find school pictures awful and cold looking. My child always looks so awkward. So can’t imagine why anyone would want to steal one anyway!

I would buy some candid shots of my child playing with his mates in school, or concentrating in a lesson etc, an awkward headshot under harsh lighting no thank you. He would also hate that too!

I send them to my friend who works in photography and he fixes them for me and cleans the mess off their faces etc.

Then I get them ordered online.

I have 3 children and I think the cheapest option this year was £11.99 for one print off. And my daughter wasn't even wearing her cardigan properly

It sucks but when you have multiple people who want one, me, dad, nan, great nan and a bundle is £20+ per child, I don't have that money.

I’m pretty sure these photos are also given free to the school for purposes such as a missing child

Not directly, no. But OpenAI agents have leaked user photos to the internet.

https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/25/unsecured-openai-agents-posted-53-user-images-on-the-internet-without-the-labs-knowledge/

Yes any large school Inc all secondaries really needs the images for ID purposes, so I can’t see them not being taken. Unless sch employed someone in a freelance basis to photograph 1,500 students in a day.

Why don't you get your "friend who works in photography" to take a picture of your kid in uniform rather than both of you stealing one off someone else?

I am not sure about chat GPT but a lot of the AI models have been used by people who "jailbreak" them and get them to create child porn. Jailbreak is just a fancy term for getting around the restrictions put on AI models to stop them from doing stuff they are not supposed to.

In order to create an image/video of e.g. Will Smith eating a plate of spaghetti AI needs lots of pictures of Will Smith and lots of images of people eating spaghetti so that it can reconstruct, pixel by pixel, a realistic "original" video.

In order to be able to create CSE, the allegations are that models such as Grok will have had to have had vast amounts of actual CSE fed into their trainibg data. So that suggests at some point someone believes that to be a legitimate use. And if you feed images of your child in school uniform into the AI training data that image will also help inform any images it makes of (eg) blonde 8 year old girl.

The whole thing is creepy and weird.

Not saying it’s right but one digital photo is £15 at DDs school with print bundles a lot more. It’s a huge amount for a photo so can see why people do it. Photographers need to come up with a better model, charging to have the photos done maybe then a small amount for the actual photos, which puts the cost on to the actual photo taking.

They look crap compared to candid photos. Scruffy hair and clothes. Don’t bother to adjust anything. I’ve kept the reception ones but that’s it. But I wouldn’t steal them and adjust them using AI