Watermarking Tutorial

silverfox

Joined: 2004-10-08
Posts: 21
Posted: Thu, 2004-10-14 17:01

Although installing Gallery and customizing to do what I want was pretty much a snap, I'm not really "artisticly inclined" if you know what I mean.

Although I've seen on great tutorials on how to water mark an image in Photoshop, PHP, or Gimp, I can't seem to find any tutorials on how to create a watermark image for use as an overlay (such as the way Gallery uses them)

I've made a few watermarks, but they seem to have problems:

    If I don't make the watermark transparent, often it will block a portion of the image and doesn't look all that great.
    If it is tranparent, then if there is a dark background, I'll end up with light "specs" all around my watermark and looks cheesy.
    If it is transparent and the background is light, I can't see my watermark.

I'd like to learn how to make a watermark that will work with most images (regardless of size and content)

Any pointers or direction? Has anyone found a good way to do this? If so, would you be willing to post a howto?

Thanks,
.o0 SilverFox 0o.[/]
 
baschny
baschny's picture

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 328
Posted: Thu, 2004-10-21 08:35

silverfox, I am no expert, but I think that using GIFs for watermarking is problematic. You're only be able to choose colors to get 100% transparent. Making your image blend into the background will still leave some background-colored pixels around your image. If your image bg is white, it will look stupid overlayed on your dark images, just as you pointed out.

I think PNGs have the ability to store alpha blending information in a 0-100% scale, so you will be able to really get rid of all background color information: The borders of your image just will blend nicely into any layout.

I am not 100% sure if this is really true, and if this is the solution to your problem, but maybe its worth the information so you can try that out.
 
silverfox

Joined: 2004-10-08
Posts: 21
Posted: Tue, 2005-03-08 23:17

Unfortunately, I am using PNG already, but still having this trouble. I think it has more to do with HOW I create the PNG's.
 
silverfox

Joined: 2004-10-08
Posts: 21
Posted: Mon, 2005-10-31 03:51

I'm more interested in see'ing a tutorial/howto on how to create the watermark in your favorite photoeditor. I've been able to make a couple watermarks that work ok with most photos, but not others. I'm really interested in seeing how to make a GREAT watermark that works with most/all photos. The task is quite different than any graphics related work I've done thus far.