Watermarking Digital Images Part 1

Digital image watermarking is the process of embedding an identifiable feature, like a company logo or signature, into the image file so that it is protected. Watermarking is vital to artists, designers and other online professionals who are concerned about enforcing copyright restrictions because it can prove ownership if it were ever to come into question. With more and more artists and photographers exhibiting their work online, it has become very easy for that work to fall into the wrong hands.

While it is impossible to keep people from taking your images, you can make it harder for them to reproduce your work if you place the watermark so that it covers a significant portion of the image. I like to use my Web site address so that even if the image is stolen or someone hotlinks to it, visitors can see where the image originated. It also works to the artist's advantage, doubling as free advertising until you can shut them down.

So how does one go about adding a text watermark to their image? If you don't have a photo-editing application like Photoshop that allows you to work in layers, there are a number of other applications that will do the trick. Watermark Factory is one such tool, among the most popular applications of its class on www.tucows.com.

Watermark Factory has a clean unique interface and offers animated tutorials to help you get started. One of its best features is the ability to apply watermarks to numerous image files at once and it also supports batch renaming, resizing and conversion. For now, let's look at watermarking a single image.

Launch Watermark Factory and click on the Add Files button to import your image. Then click on the Add Text button to add a text watermark. In the Text Watermark window, you will be able to configure the font settings in a number of ways.

Change the color, enable shadow effects, rotate it, configure the opacity, or change the size so that it is suitable to your needs and click OK.

Now just choose the file type and click the Generate button to save the watermarked version of your image. It is that easy!

Watermark Factory is currently priced at $29.95 for the personal licence, which is a 25% discount off their regular price. The business license costs $79.95. You can find out more about the program at Tucows or by visiting the authors home page at www.watermarkfactory.com.

In Part 2 we will discuss how to create text watermarks using layers in Photoshop.