Watermarking Images for websites - please help me test this...

[Ruth Mills]

Everytime I try it says I cant use it because my photos not have JPG extention, but they do???? Help lol :lol:

Oops, a bug in the code most likely! Are they .JPG (in caps) rather than .jpg (in lower case)? Well done for finding that, will try fixing it later

 

[Ruth Mills]

Kudos to you Ruth, a really imaginative and useful idea. A few small tweaks and I'd say you're onto a winner there.

Re somebody removing the copyright? It is possible, I've removed several of mine by redrawing in the missing parts over the text. I done it just to see if I could, it took me a lot of time and effort and definitely in my opinion would be a tough job to get the finished pic looking like the original especially under close scrutiny.

Nafia, sorry to hear about your pics being stolen by someone else, its happened to a few guys in here too, however I must confess that I've never heard of any software which can automatically strip a watermark from an image. Remember that once the pic is saved from Ruths test site back to the owners pc, the watermark is an actual part of the image. I'm wondering if your pics were protected in a kind of flash image gallery where the copyright image is stored in a layer over every pic in the gallery. If so, its a fairly simple job for an unscrupulous person to locate the source of the photos via the page code, go to the folder on your webspace where the photos are kept and steal whatever they want. Much better to mark all images before they go into the gallery as the layer copyright will only prevent 'right-click' thieves.

In any event, most thieves who steal pics from users of this site will more than likely be other nail techs, salon owners, etc, who are too lazy or not talented enough to take good photos themselves and are just looking for the simplest option available, if you mark your pics in any way, these lazy gits will move onto an easier target, ie, to someone who hasnt marked theirs.

Once again, well done Ruth!

Thanks Seanny

Aye, my plan was for this to work best against "casual" image theft, i.e. other people who are lazy and wouldn't want the hassle of trying to remove the watermark for the sake of using the image on their own site.

I already know of a few enhancements I want to put in place later - maybe even tonight if there's time and my brain is up to it...

(1) Improve the look of the text.

(2) Add an option for opacity - so people can choose how transparent or bold they want the watermark to look.

(3) Give more choice over the positioning of the watermark on the screen. At the moment, it's defaulting to the bottom of the page. I want to add some checkboxes so that you can choose any combination of top, middle or bottom of page (or multiple combinations of 2 or 3 of these). And then possibly add some advanced options for "offset", so you can adjust the positioning of the text up and down a bit if you want to.

(4) Improve the choice of fonts, allowing for bold and italic fonts as well. Possibly even allow the user to upload their own font if they have a posh font they want to use that isn't already on the server.

 

[Ruth Mills]

Right, the latest incarnation of this is now "live", Salon Alchemy - Watermark Images - enhancements include better looking text, the option to choose opacity (how obtrusive you want the watermark to look), the choice of position on the image (top, middle, bottom or "tile" - where the watermark is repeated over the entire image), and a slightly better range of fonts.

No more work on this until next week now - away at the beauty show on Sunday - please could you let me know what you think of this latest version and if there are any changes you would like to see...

 

[1999judy]

Ruth you're a star mate...just keep doing mine though cos you know I'm a numpty with this computer xxxx
Love to ya both and did you and Sonia eat all those chocs?:lol:

 

[Ruth Mills]

Ruth you're a star mate...just keep doing mine though cos you know I'm a numpty with this computer xxxx
Love to ya both and did you and Sonia eat all those chocs?:lol:

LOL Judy, I'll wire it all up so that when you upload a pic to your site, it will automatically watermark it with your font (Harrington) and resize it too! So it will be numpty proof lol if you pardon my French!

 

[1999judy]

LOL Judy, I'll wire it all up so that when you upload a pic to your site, it will automatically watermark it with your font (Harrington) and resize it too! So it will be numpty proof lol if you pardon my French!

Did I tell you how good you are at setting up sites???
Geeks RUTH IS FAB!!! xx

 

[Ruth Mills]

Did I tell you how good you are at setting up sites???
Geeks RUTH IS FAB!!! xx

Well I'm OK I guess lol... I still need to finish off Dee's website Hair and Nails by Dee - will hopefully do that next week...

We haven't started the chocs yet btw - we must do soon though - have had a big backlog of Easter eggs lol...

 

[Seanny]

Ruth, you're doing a great job there, very impressive! Is there any way that you can allow moving the copyright around in increments 'on the fly' as you're looking at the pic? I confess I havent got a clue about any of this stuff but I can see a big demand for this from guys who arent very techy with computers but who definitely want their pics marked. I dunno if there would be a market for a commercial version but if I was you, I'd start thinking about stamping your name on the project asap, hide the code, apply for a patent...whatever, I'm dead serious here. Is your hosting bandwidth taking a pasting with the testing? :lol:

Best of luck with your project

 

[Ruth Mills]

Ruth, you're doing a great job there, very impressive! Is there any way that you can allow moving the copyright around in increments 'on the fly' as you're looking at the pic? I confess I havent got a clue about any of this stuff but I can see a big demand for this from guys who arent very techy with computers but who definitely want their pics marked. I dunno if there would be a market for a commercial version but if I was you, I'd start thinking about stamping your name on the project asap, hide the code, apply for a patent...whatever, I'm dead serious here. Is your hosting bandwidth taking a pasting with the testing? :lol:

Best of luck with your project

Hi Seanny

Now you're talking - having a button to let you move the copyright around "on the fly" before saving would be well fab - although a tad greedy on bandwidth too as you would have to download a new image to the browser each time!

As for hosting bandwidth - it doesn't cost me any extra because it's all done from home via my broadband and I have business broadband with unlimited bandwidth allowance - last year I built the mother of all Linux servers that I use for hosting all my Java-based sites and it just sits there 24/7 hosting them all - I dread to think how much it eats into our electric bill lol...

I doubt if I'd be able to patent all of this either, as it's all done with freely available Open Source software...

 

[Kim Lawless]

WELL DONE ROOFIE...........you clever thing. xx

 

[min11]

I've only just found this Ruth, I hope its ok for me to use it still. What a star you are!! :hug:

 

[Ruth Mills]

I've only just found this Ruth, I hope its ok for me to use it still. What a star you are!! :hug:

Of course it is! If it still works (which it should do, and I hope it does) then use away - also please let me know if there are any improvements you would like me to make...

 

[Ellies Nails]

Don't know how I missed this thread in April but so glad Ive seen it now.

Thank you Ruth you are very talented, Ive just spent 3 hours putting my name on pictures you have done a fantastic job huni .
I understand were people are coming from when they say could we move the text about that's a great Idea as some times it would be good to click it along to the left or right a little so you can still see the picture. I may be getting carried away a little but through time do you think we could choice different colours for the text to complement the picture.

I cant find my new pics in my pictures any idea where they might be hiding its a new laptop and I don't really know my way round it yet.

See I'm that clever I cant even find them lol :sad:

Thanks again Ruth your a star :Love:

 

[Ruth Mills]

Don't know how I missed this thread in April but so glad Ive seen it now.

Thank you Ruth you are very talented, Ive just spent 3 hours putting my name on pictures you have done a fantastic job huni .
I understand were people are coming from when they say could we move the text about that's a great Idea as some times it would be good to click it along to the left or right a little so you can still see the picture. I may be getting carried away a little but through time do you think we could choice different colours for the text to complement the picture.

I cant find my new pics in my pictures any idea where they might be hiding its a new laptop and I don't really know my way round it yet.

See I'm that clever I cant even find them lol :sad:

Thanks again Ruth your a star :Love:

All the clever stuff with the images is done by some open-source Linux software called ImageMagick. All I did was just write a web service wrapper around it in Java, and a front end webapp to upload the image and pass it to the web service.

It should certainly be possible to improve the application to be able to move the text around left or right in small increments, and to choose different colours for the text. The application I designed in April was really just a "proof of concept" to show that it could work. I'll probably have a go at upgrading the design when I'm happy with my current project, Salon Guinea Pig - Find people for practising treatments, training courses, competitions, etc. that's been keeping me busy for the past 3 or 4 weeks lol...

As for where the images might be that you've saved... that version of the watermarking software generates a different filename for the image than the one that you uploaded. It just generates a long string of numbers and puts ".jpg" on the end of that. So maybe try looking for images that have a filename of several numbers followed by .jpg? Unless you changed the filename when you saved them? Failing that, try doing a search for all files ending in "*.jpg"?

 

[oey]

Just want to bump this thread up for those of you who havent seen it and to thank Ruth for doing this for us.

This is a fantastic tool and I certainly would be lost without it (or should I say my photos would)

Thank you so much Ruth x x x

 

[Gelly]

Wow, I've just found this.... it's great Ruth!

 

[Ruth Mills]

Wow, I've just found this.... it's great Ruth!

Wow, that's an old thread! Glad you like it though! If there's any font that's not there that you need, please let me know...

 

[Gelly]

Doesn't seem to like the .JPG files which all of my more recent pics seem to be. :cry:

works great with .jpg files though :green:

 

[Ruth Mills]

Doesn't seem to like the .JPG files which all of my more recent pics seem to be. :cry:

works great with .jpg files though :green:

Ah, I bet if you rename all your .JPG files to .jpg, they will work just fine!

But that sounds like a usability bug, so I will take a look at it for you shortly...

 

[Gelly]

Ah, I bet if you rename all your .JPG files to .jpg, they will work just fine!

Sounded simple enough... but I can't do it! :irked: