What is a photo date stamp?

Many compact film cameras from the 1980s to the early 2000s could print the date onto each picture. A small row of LEDs behind the film lit up the digits during the exposure, so the date was burned into the corner of the frame as glowing orange numbers, like '98 7 23. Today that stamp is a quick way to give a digital photo the look of a print from an old photo album.

Tool description

This tool adds a retro date stamp to your photo in the browser. It reads the date the photo was taken from its metadata, and you can change it to any date you like. Pick the date format, digit style, and color, place the stamp in a corner, then download the photo at full resolution.

Features

  • Uses the capture date from the photo's metadata, or the file date if there is none
  • Year-month-day, month-day-year, day-month-year, or day and time
  • Classic 7-segment digits or dot-matrix digits
  • Orange, red, yellow, or any custom color
  • Adjustable size, glow, brightness, and slant
  • Blend the digits in like light on film, or paint them solid
  • Place the stamp in any corner with adjustable distance from the edges
  • Full-resolution export as JPG, PNG, or WebP

How it works

The digits are drawn the way a camera's date back printed them: a two-digit year after an apostrophe, and fixed-width fields where a leading zero is left blank. With the film blend on, the digits are added to the photo as light: they glow on dark areas and fade on bright ones, and a soft halo spreads around them like light scattering in the film. Size and distances are measured against the photo's shorter side, so the stamp looks the same on landscape and portrait photos. Everything runs on your device; the photo is never uploaded. The downloaded file doesn't keep the original photo's metadata.

Tips

  • Most film cameras printed small digits near the bottom right corner of the frame, which is where the default settings put them.
  • The stamp is hard to read over a bright sky or a white wall, just like on film. Move it to a darker corner, or turn off the film blend for solid digits.
  • Turn the glow down for a sharp, modern look, or up for the soft bleed of a cheap point-and-shoot.