diff --git a/include/filter.php b/include/filter.php
index f5b558f..422a9cf 100644
--- a/include/filter.php
+++ b/include/filter.php
@@ -32,10 +32,13 @@ function filter_gpc()
                 switch($aKeys[$i][1])
                 {
                      case "h": // HTML string
-                         $aClean[$aKeys[$i]] = htmlspecialchars($_REQUEST[$aKeys[$i]]);
+                         $aClean[$aKeys[$i]] = trim(htmlspecialchars($_REQUEST[$aKeys[$i]]));
+                         // if there is no content and no image, make the variable empty
+                         if(strip_tags($aClean[$aKeys[$i]],'<img>')=="")
+                             $aClean[$aKeys[$i]] = "";
                      break;
                      default: // normal string (no HTML)
-                          $aClean[$aKeys[$i]] = strip_tags($_REQUEST[$aKeys[$i]]);
+                          $aClean[$aKeys[$i]] = trim(strip_tags($_REQUEST[$aKeys[$i]]));
                      break;
                 }
             break;