CamScanner Erase Handwriting

Use CamScanner to erase handwriting from images while preserving the printed content and original layout. Powered by a high-precision image enhancement engine that intelligently detects and removes handwritten strokes, annotations, and signatures, leaving the underlying document clean and legible. Use when the user wants to remove handwriting from a photo or scan, clean up annotated documents, or restore a blank form filled by hand. Triggers on "erase handwriting", "remove handwriting from image", "clean handwritten notes", "remove annotations from scan", or when the user has an image with handwritten content that needs to be removed.

CamScanner Image Erase Handwriting

Overview

CamScanner provides a high-precision image enhancement engine that removes handwriting from images while preserving the printed content and original layout. It intelligently detects handwritten strokes, annotations, and signatures and erases them, leaving the underlying document clean and legible. The workflow is a 3-step pipeline: upload the image, enhance it with enhance_mode: 9 (erase handwriting), then download the result. For convenience, the enhance step also supports a raw output mode that returns the processed image bytes directly, skipping the download step.

When to Use

• User wants to remove handwriting, annotations, or signatures from an image
• User has a scan or photo of a document with handwritten notes that need to be cleaned
• User wants to restore a blank form after it was filled in by hand
• User has an annotated scan and needs a clean copy for OCR, printing, or sharing

Privacy & Data

Important: Privacy & Data Flow Notice

• Third-party service: This skill sends your files to CamScanner's official servers (ai-tools.camscanner.com) for processing.
• Data retention: CamScanner servers process your files in real-time. Files are not permanently stored on the server.
• Local files: Output files are saved to your local filesystem at the path you specify.

API Reference

Base URL: https://ai-tools.camscanner.com

Supported Enhancements

source_type	enhance_mode	Operation	Output
image	9	Erase handwriting	.jpg

Step 1: Upload Image

BASE="https://ai-tools.camscanner.com"

IN_FILE_ID=$(curl -sS -X POST "$BASE/v1/tools/upload_file/execute" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/octet-stream" \
  --data-binary "@/path/to/image.jpg" | jq -r '.tool_result.data.file_id')

Response:

{
  "code": 200,
  "tool": "upload_file",
  "tool_result": {
    "success": true,
    "data": {
      "file_id": "file_1741857600_ab12cd34ef56",
      "size": 24576
    }
  }
}

Step 2: Enhance Image (Erase Handwriting)

OUT_FILE_ID=$(curl -sS -X POST "$BASE/v1/tools/enhance_image/execute" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"file_id\":\"$IN_FILE_ID\",\"enhance_mode\":9,\"output_mode\":\"file_id\"}" \
  | jq -r '.tool_result.data.file_id')

Response:

{
  "code": 200,
  "tool": "enhance_image",
  "tool_result": {
    "success": true,
    "data": {
      "file_id": "file_1741857701_9988aabbccdd",
      "enhance_mode": 9
    }
  }
}

Step 3: Download Result

curl -sS -X POST "$BASE/v1/tools/download_file/execute?response_mode=raw" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"file_id\":\"$OUT_FILE_ID\"}" \
  -o /path/to/output.jpg

Critical: The response_mode=raw query parameter is required to get the binary file. Without it, the response is JSON.

Alternative: One-Shot Raw Output

If you don't need a reusable file_id for the result, pass "output_mode": "raw" to enhance_image and save the response body directly — this combines steps 2 and 3:

curl -sS -X POST "$BASE/v1/tools/enhance_image/execute" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"file_id\":\"$IN_FILE_ID\",\"enhance_mode\":9,\"output_mode\":\"raw\"}" \
  -o /path/to/output.jpg

Quick Reference: Complete Pipeline

Erase handwriting from an image (three-step, keeps an output file_id):

BASE="https://ai-tools.camscanner.com"
INPUT_IMAGE="/path/to/image.jpg"
OUTPUT_FILE="/path/to/output.jpg"

# Upload
IN_FILE_ID=$(curl -sS -X POST "$BASE/v1/tools/upload_file/execute" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/octet-stream" \
  --data-binary "@$INPUT_IMAGE" | jq -r '.tool_result.data.file_id')

# Enhance (erase handwriting)
OUT_FILE_ID=$(curl -sS -X POST "$BASE/v1/tools/enhance_image/execute" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"file_id\":\"$IN_FILE_ID\",\"enhance_mode\":9,\"output_mode\":\"file_id\"}" \
  | jq -r '.tool_result.data.file_id')

# Download
curl -sS -X POST "$BASE/v1/tools/download_file/execute?response_mode=raw" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"file_id\":\"$OUT_FILE_ID\"}" \
  -o "$OUTPUT_FILE"

Or one-shot (two-step, raw image stream straight from enhance_image):

BASE="https://ai-tools.camscanner.com"
INPUT_IMAGE="/path/to/image.jpg"
OUTPUT_FILE="/path/to/output.jpg"

# Upload
IN_FILE_ID=$(curl -sS -X POST "$BASE/v1/tools/upload_file/execute" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/octet-stream" \
  --data-binary "@$INPUT_IMAGE" | jq -r '.tool_result.data.file_id')

# Enhance + download in one call
curl -sS -X POST "$BASE/v1/tools/enhance_image/execute" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"file_id\":\"$IN_FILE_ID\",\"enhance_mode\":9,\"output_mode\":\"raw\"}" \
  -o "$OUTPUT_FILE"

Common Mistakes

Mistake	Fix
Forgetting response_mode=raw on download	Always append ?response_mode=raw to the download URL
Wrong Content-Type on upload	Upload uses application/octet-stream, not multipart/form-data
Using GET instead of POST	All endpoints use POST
Passing enhance_mode as a string	enhance_mode is an integer — use 9, not "9"
Missing output_mode in enhance request	Must be either "file_id" (then download separately) or "raw" (stream out)
Parsing JSON when output_mode is "raw"	With raw, the response body IS the image — write it to a file with -o
Trying to download a file_id after raw response	raw mode returns no file_id; re-run in file_id mode if you need one

Error Handling

Check each step before proceeding:

# After upload
if [ -z "$IN_FILE_ID" ] || [ "$IN_FILE_ID" = "null" ]; then
  echo "Upload failed"; exit 1
fi

# After enhance (file_id mode)
if [ -z "$OUT_FILE_ID" ] || [ "$OUT_FILE_ID" = "null" ]; then
  echo "Enhancement failed"; exit 1
fi