One of the most frequent questions I get asked is if you can release the same image to multiple partners and use the watermark to trace back to who the images were sent to if they are found online. Call it forensic tracking; call it leak protection; call it whatever you want – it nets out the same. Essentially you want to know this: "If I find an image being used inappropriately online, can I use the watermark to give me information about how it got there to begin with?" The answer to this question is, yes, you can...

The key to getting this to work is adding a unique watermark to each and every instance of your images as they leave your system. This can easily be accomplished in a number of ways depending on your workflow and overall image management system, but the slickest way is via server-side watermarking software combined with a log-in relationship-based web site.

Obviously, if you assign log-ins to those who access your content, they are known to you – meaning they are not accessing your content anonymously. When that person requests your content using their log-in, the images can be automatically embedded with a unique watermark that ties any content downloaded directly to that individual. When you find an image being used inappropriately, you simply read the watermark and look up that unique watermark in your database. Voila! You're found your leak or at least the root source of your leak.

One of the coolest implementations of this I've seen was done by a customer who is in the movie-making business. They made a trilogy of movies that were super-hyped, super-anticipated, and super-top-secret from a creative and visual perspective. They needed to release images to merchandising and marketing partners many months in advance of the movie release date to support all kinds of promotional activities.  The educated fear was that these images would end up plastered all over the Internet and hurt box office receipts.

This customer watermarked all of their images using the process I described above. The results were good; the watermarks helped them pinpoint multiple leaks they had within their merchandising partnerships and they were able to “plug these holes” the next time around.