Sharing photos of family members, especially when a child is in the frame, is a strict no-no. First, it is unsafe. Second, the child should have the right to choose if his or her photo should be out there. And then there is the aspect of having fun with photos.
The app MaskerAid has been developed to take care of all these problems. Developer Casey Liss’s app allows emojis to be placed over faces. Though it may not sound like a big issue, but getting it done without an app takes some effort. MaskerAid uses machine learning to scan a photo and then work out where faces are. The emoji you choose gets placed on the face. You can move it around and resize it according to your needs.
Speaking about the app through a blog post, Casey has outlined several reasons why the app helps. Besides the once we have already mentioned, the app can help protect “faces of the children in your classroom, or your own classmates, who really don’t need to be in your images”, “faces of protestors who are standing up against a grotesque war” and “other faces in a particularly great shot of you, but was taken as part of a group”.
In way of context, Casey writes: “When my oldest child, Declan, was a baby, we posted pictures of him frequently. Not only were we new parents, but we were first-time parents, and we had just finished a nasty journey. I like to think we earned it. However, when Declan got to be around four, it occurred to me — much to my dismay — that he was no longer a little squish…. What if he doesn’t want me posting pictures of him to my social media?”
Once you have tweaked the emoji, the same can be shared on social platform or through messaging. You can also choose to save it in your library. All this means, no need to use text boxes in the Markup feature of the Photos app to cover faces or relying on Snapchat or Instagram as a photo markup tool. You may also want to add an emoji like an arrow or pointing fingers to explain something on a photo.
If there’s any catch then that would be the one-time in-app fee to unlock the full set of emoji. Of course, developers need to be paid. Second, the app is at the moment only available on iOS; it’s free to use but photos are watermarked unless you pay the one-time fee.
