Photo MetaClean: EXIF/GPS removal at the byte level, no re-encoding

Launching Photo MetaClean on Product Hunt tomorrow (2 Oct), and I would rather start the technical conversation now.

The problem.

Most metadata strippers re-encode the image. That means a second generation of JPEG compression: you pay a quality loss you did not ask for, on pixels you were not trying to change.

The approach.

Photo MetaClean walks the JPEG segment structure and copies the compressed scan data verbatim. EXIF, GPS, camera model, timestamps and software fingerprints all live in metadata segments, so removing them does not require touching the entropy-coded image data at all.

The same applies to PNG: text chunks go, the IDAT stream stays. The result is byte-identical pixel data, and the file usually gets smaller rather than bigger.

Proof, not claims.

Every release runs a self-check that compares the compressed scan data before and after. I also wrote up the technique in full on dev.to, with a runnable self-check you can copy:

https://dev.to/danyblitz/stripping-exif-at-the-byte-level-no-re-encoding-no-quality-loss-5bpo

Single Windows executable, no installer, no admin rights. Source is linked on the product page.

Question for the community.

For those who strip metadata as part of a publishing pipeline, do you verify pixel integrity afterwards, or do you trust the tool? I am genuinely curious where the blind spots are.