Recently I had a great conversation with a customer about Digimarc's digital watermarking technology. Over the course of our talk, it became apparent that many people are confused about the differences between digital watermarking and visible watermarking.

In this case, he (the customer) was explaining to me that he can only place a watermark at the top or bottom of his images so it would not disrupt the actual image. He then went on to tell me that the watermark could easily be defeated. "I can just crop the watermark out!" he said. Yes, this is true for "overt" or "visible" watermarks. These types of watermarks are usually represented by text or some type of icon that is visible on the image. And yes, if the visible watermark is in a location that does not disrupt the image (top, bottom, or sides), it can be easily removed and the core image will still be retained. Digital watermarks are not visible; it is a form of steganography. Stay tuned for a future blog entry describing steganography, but essentially, digital watermarks are hidden in the pixels throughout an image. Can you crop out the Digimarc watermark? Perhaps, in theory, but in most cases what you’d be left with is a blank image.  :-)

P.S. Digimarc's technology supports applying digital watermarks throughout the entire image or only in specific areas within an image. Be on the look out for our Digital Watermarking Guide and always check out the Digital Watermarking Tips & Tricks section to find out how and get more useful information.

I have been thinking about how to kick off this blog. My main focus will be to help you get the best results with digital watermarking without hindering the enjoyment of your images. These topics have volumes of scientific text with loads of technical details about color spaces and complex formulas that remind me of the math classes I took a long, long time ago. The technology is interesting material, but I’ll wait for a request or two for the more in-depth blog topics and will probably bring in some of the Digimarc “big brains” as guest writers.

I have to admit that at first blush digital watermarking might not seem like the most compelling topic, but as this blog evolves I think we’ll all be pleasantly surprised. In the future, I hope to use topics from tech support questions and issues from blog postings to provide useful content to our readers. For the initial blog posts, I’d like to open up the conversation beyond digital images and watermarking.

A very quick background on me... I started editing images in Photoshop 1.0 when it was still in beta, and yes, that it is a long time ago in computer years. The revolution of digitizing images has made me think about images differently, no more minuet brush strokes or adjusted exposures to get to a final image. For simple image editing all you need today is a decent scanner or digital camera and a device that can connect to the internet; the last 2 items could just be your phone. Many image storage/sharing sites have software for cropping, adjusting color and removing red eye. Pretty amazing since 10 years ago that would have required a good computer and expensive software. 20 years ago you’d have to find a color shop with a Scitex workstation or a staff of dot etchers, at least a week or more to produce and at enough cash to buy a small car. My things have changed.

I’ll wrap this up with a little interesting reading on how to create paper watermarks.

I recently was forwarded a tech support call from Lori, our resident customer support guru here at Digimarc. She informed me one of our Digimarc for Images (DFI) Professional customers was having an issue with the watermark disappearing and asked me to help him out. In the 9 plus years I’ve worked for Digimarc, I’ve been called on to help out various professional and enterprise customers. I’ve done it often enough that I sort of go into autopilot mode and shoot out an email or call them back with an answer. However, this time I stopped myself. I thought, “Why not include this as a post on our new blog? I’m sure Sam isn’t the only one this has happened to.” So that is just what I’m going to do. Hopefully this information will be helpful for you. Sam – by the way, did receive a phone call and his problem is solved.

The Issue
Sam is using a site that allows him to post his images to get feedback. The site lets him upload large images and then creates 4 smaller sizes for viewing. Sam noticed that some of the smaller versions of his images were not holding his watermark. Since he is looking for the best images to send to a publication he wants feedback, but doesn’t want someone downloading and claiming his image as theirs.

And now for the answer...

Any votes for HotDog?

Portland, Oregon - Out of undergrad I used a product called HotDog from Sausage Software (and yes when you closed down the program it went "woof") to edit HTML, and I relied heavily on the integration with PaintShop Pro for image editing.

So while I had PhotoShop installed, I found that for most of my tasks the "one click" access and quick launch of PaintShop Pro trumped the lack of capabilities.  

 

That got me thinking, what is the 2009 version of Hot Dog or MS Paint for image editing? Google's Picasa has made some tremendous advancements, including a facial recognition feature, but what about the upstarts... the companies and products that the masses haven't heard about yet? 

Some of these new products, including Picnik.com are geared toward the active social networking user and of course PhotoShop.com service fits this mold.  What are your favorite application upstarts or is it Adobe or Bust for you?

Oh, and just so you know, Sausage Software has a new product called "HotSocial"... I was afraid to find out more from work.