Watermark positioning
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turnbulm
Joined: 2004-10-03
Posts: 431 |
Posted: Wed, 2004-10-27 22:03
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OK - another comment relating to watermarks (guess which bit I've been working with today I really like the DHTML you've done to position watermarks on images (even though it crashes IE, but hey - what doesn't?). However, I've noticed that the relative sizes of the image used to position the watermark and the watermark itself aren't consistent enough for the various uses. That sentence probably didn't make much sense, so for example: 1. I upload an image direct from the camera, so the size is 3504 x 2336 2. My album is set to create a resized version constrained to 640, so I get 640 x 427 3. I also have a thumbnail, which is 140 x 93 Now, to watermark this selection I have 2 different watermarks - both the same content, but sized differently. there is one that's 640 pixels wide, and another that's 150. I want to apply the 640-wide on to the full size image and the 150 to the resized version (nothing on the thumbnail). You can guess one of the problems I'm about to hit, but I'll leave that one for later :wink: When I go to apply the watermark, the positioning piece shows me the picture as a 400 x 267 image. I'm going to do the full-size version, so I pick the 640-wide watermark. Now, that appears on screen as a 640 pixel wide watermark over a 400 pixel wide image. Where do I position it? Well, by trial and error I've worked out that the top-left corner is the anchor, but I can't even drag that to where I want it because the positioning piece is intelligent enough that it doesn't like me putting the watermark outside the image on any boundary (the fact that it has to be outside somewhere is probably really confusing it somewhere...) (BTW - to reliably reproduce this step, use an image that has already had a watermark applied. If it hasn't then sometimes the watermark does appear to be scaled appropriately for positioning) OK - say the default position happens to be OK, so I apply the watermark. Now I want to apply the 150-wide to the resized version. So I go ahead and position and apply it, but (unsurprisingly) the watermark is removed from the full size image. I did after all just tell G2 that I wanted the 150-wide on just the resized version, so it is behaving as expected. But... So I guess this is part bug, and part feature request. Bug - please can you make sure that the watermarks are scaled consistently for positioning? Feature (also about to post it on SF) - would it be possible to apply different watermarks to different versions of the same image? I'm also about to go and test what happens if I link a watermarked photo into a different album. Does it retain the watermark? Can I add a different watermark whilst still preserving the same one in the original gallery? Etc, etc, etc. Maybe another post coming tonight |
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Posts: 431
Just finished testing linking and how it interacts with watermarks and had to stop by and comment - it's perfect! :D
Please don't change this, I like that the watermarking is obviously attached to the entity as it exists in each album, rather than the image file on disk. It makes it easy to allow for the fact that I may want different watermarks on the same item in different albums that have different permissions.
Posts: 328
turnbulm, while trying out with the composite and the GD module problem, I thought about the same issues. I think there is still work to do on the watermarking front. I have one more case to add:
Our graphics toolkits have operations to place a watermark in specific pre-defined positions, instead of a manual position: top-left, top-right, center, bottom-right, etc. This currently cannot be done through the UI. Bottom-right would be a very common choice for such a positioning.
I would suggest making all of this a "task": Bring more power to the Watermarking UI. All those issues are only UI-related: our underlying framework is already able to handle all the listed cases.
And speaking of watermarks: I just corrected the GD module's behaviour and PNG-24 with alpha-transparency. It now handles those correctly (and it should work on any supported PHP versions).
Posts: 431
baschny, thanks for the GD fix - I'll get the updates from CVS later on today to play with.
I agree with the idea of a general task to bring more to the Watermarking UI, but I'd have to say I think it's lower priority than some other elements (particularly permissions) that need similar work. That said, items I see in the Watermarking task are:
1. Fix watermark positioning so the scale of the watermark and image match, possibly initially just by making the drop-target image the same size as the standard resize rather than just 400 pixels.
2. Enable standard watermark positions (top left, center, etc).
3. Ability to bulk watermark existing images (I think this would require the standard positions in 2 to be working).
4. EITHER (a) when a watermark is applied to dfferent versions of the same image, scale the watermark so it retains the same proportions in all cases OR (b) make it possible to apply different watermarks to the different versions.
5. When a user deletes a watermark from their account, also remove it from all images it has been applied to.
Posts: 328
turnbulm, thanks for the summarized list of things to be done! I just opened a new task so that we can keep track of this bunch of stuff to be done.
Posts: 431
I would offer to help, but trust me - you don't want me poking around in your code!!!