copyright on photos in photoforum

Just noticed that most people are having their photos copyrighted automatically in photoforum with the blue mark. I opted for the other and it's working fine in PDB, but it's not happening in the photo forum???????????

Nor in Parking Lot??

This message was edited Thursday, Oct 31st 7:02 PM

Why does anybody bother with copywriting their precious pictures? I'd feel flattered if anyone would find them worthy enough to use.

Ulrich, I understand what you mean but did you know that without the copyright someone else can not only claim the work as their own but then turn around and sue You for using Their picture? You may ar may not win in the lawsuit but either way you will spend valuable time and resources fighting it. My photos are very amatureish so it is not a problem but we have some excellent works of art quality photos here that could be targeted. So while I don't care who copies or uses my poor specimens it could be a problem so the copy right is necessary even for me to feel safe. And if I took the quality of photos that some members take it would become much more important!

Some of my pictures are used in publications and on posters etc here Ulrich. So, as Zany says, I wouldn't like to be sued for using my own pictures, could be a bit of a bummer don't you think??

I've looked in my preferences and the correct box is checked there Dave. It's working in PDB, but not the other forums. Please can you help?

Thank you guys for explaining. Glad I asked. Points well taken. Will start to copyright mine, too.

LOL :)

philomel: I think I fixed this this morning. Would you please try another picture and let me know how it goes?

thanks,
dave

Yeeeee haa!! Thanks Dave, it's working again. I popped one in photo forum and it's come up with the copyright fine.
I do like this particular copyright form, it blends in with the photos really well. Not as eyecatching as the blue.

Thanks again :-D

Any way we could fill in a limited-space field and that would end up the copyright watermark on the images we upload?

No. If you want that level of customization, it should be fairly easy to find a program that'll do that for you. Then you can add it in your image locally and then upload it.

dave

Dave how about you write and sell it to us!? I have to add a copyright across all my images on 3 web sites. this would cut down on time and pocket a few $ for you.

Mark,

I could do it, but it would be a Linux application. :) Do you use Linux? (chuckling).

Seriously, I don't know a single thing about programming in Windows. It'd take a year to get caught up with the differences before I could do any application development on that platform.

Now, Mark, if you want to pay me to process your images for you, I'd be more than happy to write a Linux program that'd do it, and then have you mail me the images (or, preferably, put them in a location where I can get to them with my browser) and I can process them and send them back to you.

I am a consultant, after all. :)

dave

finger on chin thinking

Yep. Think away and shoot me an E-mail if you want to get some serious help for your site projects.

Mark: You can put a watermark on batches of images with Picture-Shark, available at http://www.picture-shark.com/ I forgot all about this when I posted above. It should make things a lot easier. Lately I've been using PhotoPlus (a quasi-Photoshop application) and putting the same semi-transparent text layer over each photo right as I edit it, then exporting the watermarked photos.

Whoops! Corrected Picture-Shark's name.

This message was edited Friday, Nov 8th 11:49 PM

I thought i read somewhere that people can just edit that off again gw.
Thanks for the link to Photoshark. The Coke logo comes out very intrusive. When i went to the link for his own site to see examples it didn't work :(

The watermark becomes part of the image, Philomel. You can make the watermark out of anything; I made one out of my
"c.2002 Gardenwife.com" text by changing it into a transparent GIF. I've not used it lately, though. If you put a fair watermark over a part of the image that would be difficult to clone because of pattern or colors, you're safer. When you get down to it, nothing's going to be safe online, anyway.

One plus -- If you still have your original pictures, the data telling what camera originally took it, and when, is still there, too. Here's a journal entry I just did depicting that information: http://davesgarden.com/j/viewentry/21298/

just downloaded Photo Shark and I'm about to play around

Thank gardenwife. Yes good point about camera info etc. Also I always so far am keeping the original full size phot and that never gets posted - so that's proof of origin too.

Be interested to see how you get on please Mark, good luck

GW how can I add MarksGardenPlants across my images?

Mark - do you have a program like Photoshop or PhotoPlus, which allows layers? Here's a guide at About.com about adding a text watermark: http://graphicssoft.about.com/c/ht/00/07/How_Add_Text_Watermark0963973007.htm The basic principles are the same nomatter which photo program you use.

sorry I meant to say using photoshark

Mike is a nature photographer but he doesn't post his professional work online. It is impossible to do so safely other than compressing the image hard and making the size so small that any enlargement will blow it away. I'm also experimenting with our own watermark but not happy with what I have going so far.

There is a software program that you can use to do exactly what you were talking about gardenwife. You can see it here http://www.picmeta.com/ The down side to using this type of program is once the file has been saved using a new name for the shot, the data is lost. We have a huge harddrive connected to render farm machine and all the originals are stored there until they are sorted through. Every so often, they have to be burnt and stored to empty the drive.

This message was edited Tuesday, Nov 5th 4:40 PM

does this look too intrusive? just done using Photo Shark

Oh, ok. :) You'd need to create an image depicting that text.

To do that, use the text tool in a photo editor, cropping tightly around the text, and saving it as a transparent GIF. You might need to fiddle a bit to get the dimensions just right for your watermarks. You could save several of varying dimensions for using with various sizes of images.

Once you have it, you'll never have to mess with it again. I'm still messing, though...I'm having trouble getting text that's completely transparent in its background, but I got this far with Picture Shark just now:

That looka good Mark - need to test it on different subjects, but that looks as if it does the job without being overpowering.

Yours is larger and more obvious GW, but then it's on a different background too.

Yours seems right size for most of your subjects i should think Mark

How about something like this?

Or this?

Or

Very nice, Tim. That's the best watermarking I've ever seen. It is extremely non-intrusive; does not get in the way of the picture at all. At the same time, it clearly would be more trouble than it's worth to try to remove this mark.

I'd say that's a winner.

dave

Those look really good, Tim. What did you use to do them? Did you use Picture Shark? If so, how'd you get the text so the background was transparent? I'm still working on that! I used PhotoPlus to do these, making the copyright a single layer over top my image: http://davesgarden.com/fp.php?pid=401202 & http://davesgarden.com/fp.php?pid=401250

GW, I did this in Photoshop. I set the transparency of the layer with the text to about 50% and saved only it, with Background Layer shut off, to the clipboard. Then I pasted it onto the photo, flattened the image, and saved it as a jpeg. Can't find a way to save the clipboard image for future sessions without a white background, though :~(
Can make it fainter by going less than 50%.



This message was edited Tuesday, Nov 5th 11:08 PM

That's pretty much what I've been doing in Photoshop or PhotoPlus. Like you, I can't seem to save it transparent like that, even as a GIF or a PNG. I would like to come up with a copyright graphic which is completely transparent, except for the text itself.

How have you made that watermark Tim? As Dave says, it's really good!

I can do what Tim did using Photoshop and then move the copyright anywhere on an image, change the colour to match the plant and reduce it in size. Using PS only one can be done at a time.

Before going to bed last night I copied a folder with about 50 photos in it. Photo Shark copyrighted them all in about 10 seconds. The size of the copyright was different according to the size of the image

So it would benefit to have a copyright saved in a few different resolutions for use with Picture Shark as stamps. My images almost always have a resolution of 640 on their longest sides, so I would be safe in having two copyrights saved, each slightly smaller than the longest width I would use:

One at 72dpi & 380 pixels wide
One at 72dpi & 500 pixels wide

I used PhotoShop, moved text around, and saved each individually. Time consuming. I had something here that can overlay the copyright on a picture quickly, but can't seem to find my notes on the method since the move to Virginia.

Mark, so if you do lots at once you need to work out the best placing/colour as an average i spose?

Mmm GW size as well

So why don't you guys use that nifty Picture-shark already? GW, you hyperlinked it earlier as Photoshark. That seems to solve all your problems.