Those who dabble in photography or digital art work know the importance of watermarks. Watermarks consist of visible marks that appear on top of an image that can be identified by the source of the work. They are used to deter others from copying and reusing the image. Watermarks can easily be created in a photo editor of choice such as Adobe Photoshop but why use a program when you can use an online solution which takes care of the hard work for you. Introducing Watermarktool.
Site Info:
No user registration is necessary to use Watermarktool. Also, the service is completely free. Since January 1, 2008, over 28,000 watermarks have been generated.
Creating Watermarks:
Using the service is fairly straight forward. On the home page, there are a number of different configuration options from which to choose from. These include:
Upload: Watermarktool supports the ability to upload an image but it must be 100KB or smaller in size.
Text: Configure the text that is displayed via your Watermark
Font: Choose between a select number of fonts
Text Size: The size of your Watermark text
Repeat: Decide whether your pattern should repeat or not
Position: Choose which direction the watermark should repeat
Text Color: The color of your watermark text
Text Transparency: The lower the transparency level, the harder it will be to see the watermark
Box Color: This is the color of the watermark box
Box Transparency: How transparent the watermark box appears
Results:
Using the Problogger header logo as an example, this is what I was able to come up with. The first image is the configuration I used. The second image showcases a before and after image.
The results shown on the Watermarktool website appear as thumb nailed images. To view the full sized image, you’ll need to click on the thumbnail and then right click the image to save it to your desktop. Images are routinely deleted from the site to prevent hotlinking as well as keeping the site accessible for free. If you’re not satisfied with the generated watermark, simply click your browsers back button and make the appropriate changes, then click on the generate button again until you have something you like.
Final Notes
As you can see, the watermark I generated is not complicated but I feel it has enough complexities to deter others from using the image. The most common mistake I see with regards to watermarks is that, the watermark sometimes overpowers the image. Watermarks are not an end all be all to protect against others using copyrighted images but they certainly help. Also, if you use a unique watermark that only you can identify, spotting frauds on the net becomes pretty easy. While this generator doesn’t provide the same customization options as Photoshop, I think it makes for an excellent addition in your online blogging toolbox.
Great tool. I will begin to use it on my sports sites right away. Thanks
This is great I can think of many ways to use this.
This would also seem like a great branding tool. You could give out free images with a little watermark of your website in the corner.
That’s Like. And it looks like you could watermark an image and then continue to trick it out with some other online tool like Picnik.
Good idea. no need to carry your software and deal with watermarking your personal images. Thanks.
Regards
Thinkjayant
This is great, thanks!
Challenge to you though: find us the same capability for video.
-Brian
Thank you for sharing this much needed tip! I guess you read my mind, because I’ve been wondering exactly how others make watermarks to use on their photos. Now I can easily learn how to best implement them with photos on my blog. I appreciate your advice and will certainly check into the Watermarktool.
– RhondaH
http://www.SavvyBeginningsBlog.com
One thing that I find helps is to you use your web address as the watermark – Instantly recognizable if it’s stolen so other sites are less likely to use it. And if they do then you might even get some traffic out of it.
Thats a great tool and appreciate you bringing it to our attention. I’ve added COPYSCAPE to my site and it still doesn’t stop right clickers. I should be able to keep them busy for years. Thanks Darren.
Nice tool. No hassles in carrying the information. Thanks for sharing the information. Tweeted this one :)
Watermarktool is a great way to watermark eBay images. Copying images is rampant there, and I work too hard to photograph and edit my images just to have them stolen!
Thanks for the tip!
That is a great tool but I would rather just use Photoshop. I know some people do not have Photoshop though and this will benefit them.
That’s very useful. I usually watermark images myself in Photoshop, but this is a lot easier!
Great idea! I’ll start using this on my own images.
C
I currently just use my photo editing program to apply watermarks, but that is a neat free online tool!
This is a nifty little tool, thanks for sharing! :-)
I’m a wedding photographer and don’t water mark my images. I’m going to start incorporating the my name to the actual photo before it goes out. I have seen where people will put photos on FB and MYspace that have the watermarks front and center. I like the watermarking tool because it seems a whole lot easier to put on a photo rather than opening up photoshop
Although the hard watermarks are probably best, if you dont want to create a new image for every photo you have, I wrote an article on how to create a watermark technique with some simple CSS.
Again, my technique is not fully steal proof, so if you really want your images protected, the tool mentioned above is probably the best way~
Just another option for CSS watermarks :-)
http://www.sohtanaka.com/web-design/protect-your-images-with-css-watermarks/
Yeah, this tool makes it easy to place your web address onto the picture and if you come across someone using your labeled picture without your consent, you can first laugh at them for displaying the picture with your link in it, then you can send them an email telling them to remove the image.
I will definitely keep my eye out for a watermarking tool for videos.
This is a good tool for users who don’t want to use photoshop in watermarking their images.
I agree, I think this is a great addition to my food blog. My biggest fear is to see a food picture I spent so much time taking on someone elses blog.
I don’t know what it is lately, but you are posting to my needs as they come up. It is weird. I was just going to research how to do this for a new client.
Thanks!
Looks like a nice tool. I’ve been trying to create watermarks on my own, and this looks better and is less time consuming.
Thanks!
Matt
Easy to use and fast! I just use it for 2 images.
Extremely beneficial to me as I do not have photoshop :)
Thanks, Darren!
That is a useful tool.I was planning to use some photos from my own collection on my blog.I will use the water mark.I had seen this often but did not know how to go about it.And the best thing it is free.If I put my blog address even if someone stills my photo it will add to the publicity of my blog.And if I watermark my photograph
with my web address and use it different social media groups to which I belong more publicity for my blog.That is indeed a very useful free tool for beginners.Thanks Jeff for sharing it.
thanks for recommend great tool for the best result…… I love free tools
A useful tool, but kinda unnecessary if you have Photoshop. If it were like Digimarc, I’d jump on board right away!
You know you should mention it that it’s very illegal to watermark other people’s photos and images. In fact the owner can come back and find exactly who breached their copyright.
So watchout everyone who wants to watermark funny images they find on the web with their brand. Without actually owning the copyright to these images.
http://teamnirvana.com/blog/how-to-watermark-your-images-online-for-free.html
Posted about this awesome tool in the month of July itself.
Anyway, thanks for sharing it to the world.
Nice info, thank you. Could you please tell me how can i use a Image Header in my WP blog?
great. I like to use this tools.
If only there were a comparable tool to hinder plagiarists from stealing copy. Not a week goes by that I don’t have to send out a nasty “Cease & Desist Letter,” explaining copyright infringement to some loser who was too lazy to write his own website text. Grrrrrr!
Why use a program when you can use an online solution? Because you shouldn’t trust a website that doesn’t include physical contact details (as far as I saw) and hides its registration behind WhoisGuard! (As I understand it, that’s not even legal for EU-based business websites any more.)
So, who are you sending your unwatermarked source images to? It may be harmless, but I don’t see how you can tell.
You know I’ve been wanting a watermark tool to insert my logo on my photos but I don’t have photoshop installed. This is a great alternative, however now Picasa has added this option so I use their tool when I edit my photos before uploading them to my site.
@serge – You make an excellent point and one I didn’t think to bring up in the article. Thanks for the reminder.
That would have been of use to me except that I host all my photos on Photrade which puts the watermark of my choice in automatically.
Might this concept be used with copy? Not all copy within a site merits protection or credit, but especially when we produce written content that we’re willing to share but want to have a means of sending readers back to the original site, is there a way of utilizing this or something similar?
Darren thanks for always giving us useful tools and info!
-Jason
I really enjoy using picmarker.com. I find it a tad bit easier and quicker.
Hey all. I actually created Watermark Tool and just noticed the link to it from Pro Blogger! It’s great to see so many of you finding it usefull. I’m actually planning on adding some new features in the near future that should make it even easier to protect your images.
MJ Ray, as for me sending your images to a website that doesn’t have contact info, I can definitely understand your concern. The reason I don’t put my contact information on there is because I don’t want to get spammed and I prefer not to have my personal information floating around out there. I do have a contact form, however, so you can get a hold of me for whatever reason. Also, all images uploaded are deteted regularly from the system completely. The only information that is stored is some of the options that you choose to watermark with and that is stored just for stat purposes. Your images can be stolen from the web quite easily without me having to create a watermarking website to suck them in :)
@Jeremy – sure, *you* might be a fine, honest, upstanding individual who has legitimate reasons for hiding your business’s details (and the site is a business, selling ad space to google), but you must admit, it looks like a great way to get copies of images that are worth watermarking, doesn’t it? Take down one web contact form and all contact routes to you are gone – I’ve no idea whether a Californian privacy service can be forced to surrender user details and how much that costs from overseas. So I’ll take the simplest route and suggest that people don’t use such a cloaked service for any images they want to protect seriously.
Also, images aren’t “stolen from the web”: they’re copied without permission. That’s still a bad enough problem, but let’s not get melodramatic about it!
MJ Ray, according to your “standards” then, you shouldn’t really use any online website at all that takes any of your information. Just because a website has contact info doesn’t mean anything, especially when a WhoIs guard can easily be penetrated by authorities if there is reason to. Any forum you join, social networking site you join, or any other website you join could potentially be stealing your information, not to mention the slight chance of them installing something sinister on your computer for even more security troubles. Also, what about image hosting sites like Image Shack? Should they be avoided alltogether as well?
I’m not exactly sure what you’d like. If I put a name and address on that site, who’s to say it’s really mine? My name may not even be Jeremy for all you know.
Basically, what I’m saying is that if you don’t watermark your images and you put them online, people can easily steal them and reuse them as their own anyway. It doesn’t make any sense for me to create a website to try and steal people’s images because a person that’s stealing images is looking for a specific thing and my website is getting a whole crazy range of different images from family photos to product images to digital art.
With that all said, I definitely agree that people need to be careful about what websites they go to and trust. However, in this case the only thing my website could even steal would be your images, browser info, and the watermark settings you choose. All of which are easy to get without creating a watermarking website.
Let me also say that I am going to be putting more information about the website, a terms of service/privacy policy, and a link to my company (Squirrelinabox Media http://www.squirrelinabox.com). I initially just through up the site a year ago to see if people would find it useful and now that it has become quite popular, I will be developing it further and will be sure to include more information.
Actually, I don’t put much onto many websites because many of them are untrustworthy. I don’t know about Image Shack – I use some other image hosting sites which I’m happy with. Most web services should be avoided and I believe a lot of people are going to get a painful demonstration one day of how cheaply they’ve surrendered their valuables to nasty people.
I’ve no idea how easily a WhoIs guard can be penetrated by authorities and prefer not to rely on being able to appeal to authority if there’s a problem. The “standards” of including business details on business websites aren’t just mine, but are part of European Union trading legislation. It also seems to me like basic honesty and decency to put one’s name beside your work, but I know each culture has different views on that.
While images submitted to WatermarkTool have no common theme, they all have the common property that someone thought them valuable enough to watermark. It’s just the cream of the web, more likely to be worth copying without permission (it’s still not stealing).
Thanks for including more details in a future edition of the site and please remember, I started by answering the general question “Why use a program when you can use an online solution?” from the original post. While WatermarkTool was the example, it wasn’t specific to that site.
Sorry – cut this out of my last comment in error: “If I put a name and address on that site, who’s to say it’s really mine?” If your business is registered with your government, then we can cross-check with their listings – usually they’re pretty keen to have correct details for taxes and so on. That’s pretty simple to check now for most companies in much of Europe. The US and Canada seem to be lagging behind on this, though.
Wow. This is something that will be really beneficial to me. Thanks Darren for providing such value to us, your avid reader again!
Cheers
Sean
MJ Ray, as I’ve said, it’s good to use some caution when trying out online services. However, in my opinion, it seems as though you have taken that a bit to the extreme and may be missing out on a lot of great web services.
If a website does something illegally, it can VERY easily be shut down. The WhoIs guard that is on domains can be removed very easily by the registrars the moment authorities request it.
As for the lack of my personal information on the website. First, I’m just a one many company. As such, my online business is driven soley from my home. If I made my company’s address and contact information public, then I’d be putting my home address and home phone number up there. Do you see Darren putting any contact information on this website? No. He uses a contact form as well, as do just about every website that isn’t necessarily part of a huge corporation with an office. Second, I have a dozen or so domains, and a few that I haven’t gotten around to developing yet don’t have WhoIs guard on them yet. Even though there is no website on those domains at all, I frequently receive email spam, and letter spam in my mailbox at my home.
I will make this point one last time. If somebody is uploading their image to my website, that means they are likely going to be putting that image up somewhere on the web – which is why they want it to have some protection via a visible watermark. As such, when the put that image on the web, it’s going to be available for anybody to come along and copy it. It doesn’t really make sense to be afraid of my site stealing images, when those images will eventually be on the web anyway and willl be available for EVERYBODY to steal. Also, if I ever did start putting up any of the copyrighted uploaded images anywhere, people could easily just send a cease and desist to either my webhost or use the authorities to penetrate the WhoIs on my domain to get my contact information.
Again, it’s good to be cautious when surfing the web. But one should always do some research about and determine where the real risks like without denying themselves very safe web services that may help them out.
Darren might not, but plenty of people do put their names and addresses to their online businesses (as required by EU directives) without ill effects. Also, we have multiple ways to hunt Darren Rowse down, through b5media and others.
One last time, unauthorised image use isn’t stealing, but I’m arguing that people should use verifable *desktop* software to watermark images, instead of uploading their valuables to a hidden-owner website. I don’t share your faith in the weakness of WhoisGuard if there’s a problem. Don’t upload anything to the web unless you accept there’s a chance of it becoming public.