diff --git a/README.markdown b/README.markdown
index 91e2f14..1a914b9 100644
--- a/README.markdown
+++ b/README.markdown
@@ -70,7 +70,6 @@ These are the options you can pass to the shell program.
     -F params # i.e. -F 'title=my title' -F 'tags=mytag1,mytag1'
     -p # pretty print the json
     -v # verbose output
-    --encode # base 64 encode the photo
 
 Now you can run commands to the OpenPhoto API from your shell!
 
diff --git a/openphoto/main.py b/openphoto/main.py
index 1c13451..10fe9a7 100644
--- a/openphoto/main.py
+++ b/openphoto/main.py
@@ -63,7 +63,6 @@ def main(args=sys.argv[1:]):
                       help="pretty print the json")
     parser.add_option('-v', action="store_true", dest="verbose", default=False,
                       help="verbose output")
-    parser.add_option('--encode', action="store_true", dest="encode", default=False)
 
     options, args = parser.parse_args(args)