Wide's World

Protect Your Assets

by

Widearea

Porno-Graphix

Watermarks and Branding
Before the advent of computing, the design field was relegated predominantly to the printed page. As paper was the medium for visual communication, paper mills developed a method of creating a "watermark," or an embedded design within paper stocks to identify certain stocks and manufacturers. If you take a sheet of quality stationary and hold it up to the light you may see that particular paper's watermark. In the world of the digital image, a watermark exists as well. This can be invisibly embedded into an image, or may in fact be visibly printed over an image. The purpose of such a mark is to retain copyrights and protect your digital assets from infringement, as well as to brand or identify your company, etc. This week we will begin to look at protecting our adult content through the implementation of some methods of copyrighting, branding and watermarking digital images.

Why should I?
We know that in order to prevent our content from being stolen that the proper use of an .htaccess file can prevent other webmasters from "hotlinking" your valuable adult content. Hotlinking is the nefarious practice of serving the images stored on your own server for the illegal use of content on someone else's website. If you need to know more about this, consult the VNWR resources and check out Billy's .htaccess tutorial. It is a very nice guide to understanding how this works. But how do you prevent the distribution of your licensed content by the surfers visiting your site? Many surfers will download pictures from your sites and maybe even mail them to friends, or whatever. The simple action of placing a copyright or logo and url can actually make you money from those folks that like to redistribute your content over the web. When your website's address is printed on your images, you can get a nice flow of type-in traffic coming from people who have underhandedly obtained your site's content. Let's look at a simple way to brand your site by including a basic "watermark" type of brand on your pics. This is what the big guys do with their partner's content and you can bet they get nice traffic for free from doing this, as well as to cover their asses by protecting their copyright to such content.

In the Beginning was the Logos - Etymology Not Religion
The bible begins with God uttering the Word, or Logos, and the void of darkness and chaos began to take shape in the form of his seven day creation. If you have a company or a business, you know the value of your company's logo. It is your word and your identity -- the basis for your own creation. When you can place this word on your pics your identity is disseminated for all to see it. Before you begin this week's exercise, be sure to check your content provider's licensing agreement, and make sure you abide by their terms and conditions always. Violation of those terms whether performed knowingly or unknowingly can be a costly lesson to learn. Imagine having to pay someone even one dollar for every pic you own.

A potential lawsuit may award the plaintiffs at least a hundred times that amount per picture. Most licensed content, however, will allow relative freedom to manipulate your images as you see fit. But, it's always best to check it out before going crazy! The following is a basic method of making a simple watermark. It is only a suggestion, and you are encouraged to develop your own method and style, etc.

1. Select File -> Open and locate the image you wish to identify on your local drive.
2. Select the Type Tool and type the copyright info and whatever text you wish to apply to your licensed content. If you have a logo you wish to use then open it and drag its layer onto your image from the layers pallete to the image's window. The keyboard shortcut for the copyright symbol is Alt+0169 or Option-G (MAC).
3. While the type dialog box is still open, select the color for your type layer by clicking the foreground color swatch. Set the color to your desired value. In this example we used 100% white.
4. Position the text or logo image where you want it.
5. Right click (CTRL-click on MAC) on the type/logo layer in the layers pallette and choose "Effects."

6. Select Bevel and Emboss and set your preferences. In this example we used the application's defaults.
7. With this layer active, in layers pallette change the blend mode to "Hard Light."

8. Save your work. Also, keep a copy of your mark as a separate file for future use.

While the computer's capabilities for creating digital watermarks goes far beyond what we have covered this week, it should serve as an initial point of departure for an exploration of watermarking, branding and copyright protection. In the future we will explore other methods of such, as well as to delve into automating the process. Thanks for stopping by Wide's World this week! Until next time, Happy Webmastering!

Reference/Useful Links

Creating and Using Watermarks - All about watermarking.
Digimarc - Tutorials on various watermarking technology.