Photoshop World 2012 arrived with a flurry of techy inside jokes, loads of live demos and dozens of workshops led by industry experts. Your very own Digimarc for Images team landed in booth 235 armed with exclusive discounts on our Basic, Professional and Enterprise subscriptions, a Travel Photographer of the Year photo book prize and digitally watermarked tees. Our very own Seth Wood on the Marketing team hand-crafted the image.

These are no ordinary tee shirts however. They not only look fantastic, but they are watermarked and utilize Digimarc Discover, our Print-to-Mobile technology. The team had a wonderful opportunity to not only tout our online image safeguard solution Digimarc for Images, but also explain how Digimarc Discover worked as well. For a thorough explanation, check out Don’s previous blog post.

Thank you to all who attended Photoshop World. We had a blast signing up new DFI customers, renewing current ones and chatting with attendees from all around the world!

Hey there folks! I want to share a news report video about online photo piracy. The segment features our dear friend Ben Bounketh. He's shy, so I've taken the liberty of posting the video for him! It's a very relevant story about the concerns people have (or should have) when posting digital pix to the web, something Digimarc for Images can help with.

This is our first in-app browser version of Digimarc Discover! Now you can enjoy all that digital content in magazines like Seventeen, House Beautiful and Redbook right from the comfort of our app!

In-app Browser

• Scan digital watermarks, QR codes and product barcodes and view links without having to leave the Digimarc Discover app
• Return to “Look” mode with one tap of a button 
• Rotate your device to view all links in Portrait or Landscape orientation

Sharing Enhancements

• Share any link via Facebook, Twitter or email directly from the in-app browser.

Note that this version requires iOS 5.0 or higher to install on your iOS device.

Digimarc for Images is the proud sponsor of The Emancipated Artist, an online community that strives to foster creativity in all art forms. The Emancipated Artist (EA) exemplifies Digimarc’s mission of generating technology that is utilized as a tool to not only simplify but enhance everyday life. Staying true to this artistic spirit, and inspired by the iconic words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” The Emancipated Artist has decided to hold their first ever Wanderlust Photo contest! The premise of the competition is simple, they want you to sieve through your original images to find the picture you feel best showcases the travels you’ve embarked on. The contest will be running through August 31st, 2012 - so get searching!

How do I enter?

1. Visit their contest page and upload your image. In order to be eligible for the competition you must be an EA member. If you’re not already a member, it’s easy to become one! A portal of creative stimuli is just one free sign-up away.

2. From here, The Emancipated Artist will transfer your picture to the Wanderlust Photo Contest album on the Emancipated Artist Facebook page. All participants should encourage their friends, family, and fellow photo enthusiasts to view the album and show their support. The photographer whose image gets the most likes and comments will be the winner of the competition!

The grand prize is this year's edition of the Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) Journey Four Book! This glossy album is a gateway to all sorts of heavens that photographers have managed to artfully capture. So on behalf of the EA, artists; you’re now officially emancipated - go forth and spread the beauty you’ve captured to the rest of the world!

(Thank you to Nidhi George, for this guest blog post.)

Digimarc for Images is committed to the photography community, especially travel photographers! We like to live vicariously through all the adventures and exotic journeys they get to go on — all in the name of "work." To highlight our committment, we are a proud sponsor of the Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) contest, "The premier travel photography awards and your showcase to the world."

The following banners were provided to Digimarc to help by TPOTY to help showcase our involvement. Can anyone tell us what kind of whale/dolphin that is???

Camera prints, film and slides ability to survive thanks to the physical nature of their materials is pretty common. Keeping in mind that photography only began in the 1820's and we may find that digital photography could be even more durable.

I loved reading this story about a DSLR that spend a year at the bottom of a bay. Not only was the diver able to retrieve images, but he also found the owner of the camera and images using a social network.

A bit more disconcerting is this story of a woman who finds a family photo in Ikea that she posted to her blog. Ikea bought the image from a stock photography company. I was unable to find a follow-up to this story. Most likely the stock photography company paid their base rate for a stock photo if there's no copyright infringement.

My two conclusions:

1. Make sure you erase that SD card really well before you sell off an old camera.
2. Before posting images to the web consider adding a digital watermark like Digimarc for Images and copyrighting them. If your stolen photos are found and have your copyright you could do better than a base rate for stock photos.

 

Digimarc was chosen as App of the Day by Apple’N’Apps.com! We are honored and pleased to be in such excellent company as Apple’s Store app and Mint.com.

House Beautiful magazine first began using Digimarc Discover™ technology in their July/August issue. Their adventure with digital watermarks was a success, and the October edition contained seven watermarks and introduced a new digital Table of Contents section. You can read the full press release here. The momentum continued to build when they announced that their November cover would be their first to be digitally watermarked. The payoff was a fantastic video short that paid homage to early Andy Warhol films. As of late, House Beautiful has also announced that they will begin leveraging digital watermarks in their advertising and marketing beginning in February 2012. Take a peek at the video below of Digimarc Discover in action in their November pages:

 

We’ve had increasing interest by our customers on how to best maintain the integrity of digital watermarks. Here are a few tips and tricks that should help in the long run:

High strength watermarks survive the best.
Make sure to embed your images with a higher strength; this just means you are putting more watermark signal into your image. With our new "Chroma" technology, we suggest using an embed strength of 3 or 4, as the watermark should still be imperceptible. It is also easier for your watermark to survive when you save your final image at a maximum quality setting in Photoshop.

For some reason smartphone manufacturers neglect to tell us that your smartphone camera does NOT take a photo when you tap on the shutter button. The camera takes the photo when you RELEASE the shutter button, or at least it does on iPhone and Android phones that follow the OS specs.

So... when you are trying to get that photo of your kids, pet or a group that's in motion, try this: Place your finger on the shutter button and release it when you see the shot you want to take.

You'll avoid shaking the phone by not tapping on the shutter button. You could get a shot of your friends or kids smiling! Better photos in less than 30 seconds.

Join John Batdorff, professional photographer and author of Black and White: From Snapshots to Great Shots, as he shares with you his vision and straight forward techniques for creating compelling black and white images — protected by Digimarc for Images. Registration is free!

Check out some of John's great photos and read his blog at http://www.batdorffphotography.com.