Exclude Tags from get_the_tags

While following this article to get tags by date, I was wondering if I could exclude certain tags from what gets returned. The point is to have trending tags but some tags will always be there and I don’t want to include those ones.

Here is the code:

    <?php
    $how_many_posts = 50;
    $args = array(
        'posts_per_page' => $how_many_posts,
        'orderby' => 'date',
        'order' => 'DESC',
    );
    // get the last $how_many_posts, which we will loop over
    // and gather the tags of
    query_posts($args);
    //
    $temp_ids = array();
    while (have_posts()) : the_post(); 
        // get tags for each post
        $posttags = get_the_tags();
        if ($posttags) {
            foreach($posttags as $tag) {
                // store each tag id value
                $temp_ids[] = $tag->term_id;
            }
        }
    endwhile;
    // we're done with that loop, so we need to reset the query now
    wp_reset_query();
    $id_string = implode(',', array_unique($temp_ids));
    // These are the params I use, you'll want to adjust the args
    // to suit the look you want    
    $args = array(
        'smallest'  => 15, 
        'largest'   => 15,
        'unit'      => 'px', 
        'number'    => 10,  
        'format'    => 'flat',
        'separator' => "n&bull;n",
        'orderby'   => 'count', 
        'order'     => 'DESC',
        'include'   => $id_string,  // only include stored ids
        'link'      => 'view', 
        'echo'      => true,

    );
    wp_tag_cloud( $args );
    ?>

UPDATE: I am wondering since doing passing an ‘exclude’ object in the args for wp_tag_cloud didn’t work as one answer suggested, if doing an unset before the wp_tag_cloud runs is how to make this work? The problem is is that I don’t know much about php or WordPress so I’m not sure how to work that in to the above code.

                foreach( $tags as $tag_key => $tag_object ) {
                if ( 'tag1' == $tag_object->slug || 'tag2' == $tag_object->slug ) {
                        unset( $tags[$tag_key] );
                        }
                    }

Thanks for your help!

UPDATE 2:
@artlung answer worked perfectly.

Answers:

Thank you for visiting the Q&A section on Magenaut. Please note that all the answers may not help you solve the issue immediately. So please treat them as advisements. If you found the post helpful (or not), leave a comment & I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Method 1

<?php
    $how_many_posts = 50;
    $exclude_these_term_ids = array(
       10,
       20,
       35,
    );
    $args = array(
        'posts_per_page' => $how_many_posts,
        'orderby' => 'date',
        'order' => 'DESC',
    );
    // get the last $how_many_posts, which we will loop over
    // and gather the tags of
    query_posts($args);
    //
    $temp_ids = array();
    while (have_posts()) : the_post(); 
        // get tags for each post
        $posttags = get_the_tags();
        if ($posttags) {
            foreach($posttags as $tag) {
                // store each tag id value
                // that is not in the $exclude_these_term_ids
                // array
                if (!in_array($tag->term_id, $exclude_these_term_ids)) {
                    $temp_ids[] = $tag->term_id;
                }
            }
        }
    endwhile;
    // we're done with that loop, so we need to reset the query now
    wp_reset_query();
    $id_string = implode(',', array_unique($temp_ids));
    // These are the params I use, you'll want to adjust the args
    // to suit the look you want    
    $args = array(
        'smallest'  => 15, 
        'largest'   => 15,
        'unit'      => 'px', 
        'number'    => 10,  
        'format'    => 'flat',
        'separator' => "n&bull;n",
        'orderby'   => 'count', 
        'order'     => 'DESC',
        'include'   => $id_string,  // only include stored ids
        'link'      => 'view', 
        'echo'      => true,

    );
    wp_tag_cloud( $args );
    ?>

Method 2

The function get_the_tags returns an array of objects, one object for each tag assigned to the post. If you want to exclude some tags you can do it in the wp_tag_cloud function by the tag id or slug. Example:

$args = array(
        'smallest'  => 15, 
        'largest'   => 15,
        'unit'      => 'px', 
        'number'    => 10,  
        'format'    => 'flat',
        'separator' => "n•n",
        'orderby'   => 'count', 
        'order'     => 'DESC',
        'include'   => $id_string,  // only include stored ids
        'exclude'   => 'tag1, tag2, tag3',
        'link'      => 'view', 
        'echo'      => true,

    );
    wp_tag_cloud( $args );

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0