Photo app gets rid of bystanders in your holiday snaps

Niall Firth, technology editor

It's the same scene played out at tourist sites the world over: You're trying to take a picture of a partner or friend in front of some monument, statue or building and other tourists keep striding unwittingly - or so they say - into the frame.

Now a new smartphone app promises to let you edit out these unwelcome intruders, leaving just leave your loved one and a beautiful view intact.

Remove, developed by Swedish photography firm Scalada, takes a burst of shots of your scene. It then identifies the objects which are moving - based on their relative position in each frame. These objects are then highlighted and you can delete the ones you don't want and keep the ones you do, leaving you with a nice, clean composite shot.

Loud party of schoolchildren stepping in front of the Trevi Fountain? Select and delete. Unwanted, drunken stag party making the Charles Bridge in Prague look untidy? See you later.

Remove uses similar technology to the firm's Rewind app, launched last year, which merges composite group shots to create the best single image.

The app is just a prototype at the moment - as is the video above - but Scalado will demonstrate a full version at the 2012 Mobile World Conference in Barcelona later this month. 

http://www.newscientist.com/