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Watermarking a Black & White Image.


IamSam

IamSam

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Recently, I was asked about watermarking a black and white image. I have yet to find a solution that can't be easily defeated with Ps.

If you have any little tricks or ideas as to how to effectively render the graphic..........'difficult to borrow', please share.

So here's the challenge, make a similar graphic as shown below and watermark it with your best effort. You need to make your own so that we can attempt to defeat it. If you use the one I provided, you may just accuse me of replacing your effort with my original.

Screen Shot 2014-11-03 at 10.15.17 AM.png



Do not describe any methods or techniques you may have used to defeat any of the submitted watermarks.

Thanks.
 
I agree, I was only using the text graphic as an example.
 
You posed a very interesting and useful challenge, Sam! Good idea: :thumbsup:

I have two techniques that I think will (a) slow down most thieves; (b) make it difficult to achieve a high quality reconstruction of the areas covered by the watermark; and, (c) not detract too much from the appearance of the image when only given a cursory look.

My first technique is simply to add noise to, and around the watermark. However, I have never tried to have someone intentionally defeat this technique. Depending on one's level of concern, and ones willingness to trade off appearance for effectiveness, one has lots of choices with respect to size, noise density, noise intensity, type of noise, etc. Here's an example:

tjm_test02_698px_hi_8bpc-01.jpg


My second pilferage reducing technique isn't a watermark at all: I simply shrink the photo down to a a few hundred pixels on the longest edge. That way, most commercial uses are discouraged, and on people's monitors it just looks small, not intentionally defaced.

Thoughts?

Tom
 
Interesting Tom, I can see where this is very effective on this type of image. How well do you think it might work on a graphic?

I had actually seen you do this before so I was in the process of making one for myself to test on the graphic..........I became sidetracked and have not yet finished it.
 
Ahh. When you said "black and white", I interpreted it as a photographer, ie, like a "black and white print", which is actually grayscale, LOL. Now I see that you probably really meant B&W, not grayscale.

In that case, I think that a noise watermark would still do a pretty good job of frustrating someone trying to steal the graphic. Here's the first true B&W that I could find and of which I am the creator.

Click through to the 1:1 version, and I think it's pretty clear that adding noise would corrupt the edges and annoy the daylights out of anyone trying to pass off the underlying B&W graphic image as their own, but even so, both the image and the watermark would still be quite readable by a human.

T

noise-watermarked-equations01.jpg
 
Well that was fast!

I think we have a winner! I have worked on Toms "noise" watermarking for quite awhile now.............I can't beat it with out some serious reconstruction!! I would like to see if anyone else can beat it.

This would definitely do a superb job of frustrating a would be thief!

Tom, I would enjoy and appreciate a nice detailed explanation of how you went about doing this. Thanks.
 
I understand the reason to watermark, but I don't understand why people
watermark some images.

In some of the photography forums that I read people upload images and ask
for critiques. When these images are watermarked, it's often difficult to evaluate
the image.

I don't do any type of professional photography where I would provide "proofs"
for potential customers, but I do understand the need for pros to watermark in
this case.

As to my images being stolen...have at it! I would be flattered.
 
Hey Tony, thanks for the comment.

Watermarking to avoid image theft is a common and appropriate practice for most professional Photographers and Graphic artists. Most are very effective with the exception of black and white (no gray scale) graphics. And since a lot of the newer and contemporary Logo designs can be black and white only, it can be a challenge to add an effective water mark to prevent theft.

While it may be inconvenient for us to have to view an effective watermark, as in C&C, I certainly understand it's use.

Having been the victim of online artwork theft, I'm a firm believer in watermarking. Having said that.........if you don't want it stolen.........don't post it on the internet.
 
@Sam - As you probably figured out, we did make it back home late last night, so I have full access to my real computer, and, if you want, will be happy to post a mini-tutorial on how I do that sort of watermark. The short version is simply that I just type the text, turn on some noise in the layer properties efx (eg, outer glow, drop shadow, etc.), and then play with the amounts of noise, as well as the overall opacity and fill to get what I consider to be a good balance between making the watermark evident, but allowing the viewer to see the essence of the image. It's such a fast method that I don't even bother to keep a watermark template around -- I just do it from scratch when I need to.

FWIW, I try to watermark in BW / gray because I find that colored watermarks can be too overwhelming, almost no matter how dilute u make it. That being said, there are exceptions to this where color can be very useful. BTW, I almost always turn the "fill" way down for more or less the same reason.

Also, I find that just a simple fill of almost the entire image with B&W fairly widely spaced, low opacity, hard noise is another simple way to prevent anyone from using the image commercially, but one's eyes are amazing at their ability to look right through such noise. I do usually leave a few small openings in the noise to let people see what the underlying image really looks like.

HTH,

T
 
If it's not too much trouble Tom, I would like a mini-tutorial on how you make your watermark. It can be written only, I don't mind. Thanks!
 
I would be interested to see how Tom Mann does it. How about a tut Tom?
 
Hey Guys - Sorry for the delay, but I just got back to town and hit with a lot of work. I will get to it tho.

In the interim, let me say that there's less to this method than meets the eye, LOL. It's really not much more than simply adding some noise.

I happen to like adding the noise using layer efx settings (as I described in the 1st paragraph of my previous post), but you could also do it with a simple noise layer and the text in a partially opaque mask, or any of several other different methods. The most important aspect of this is the use of noise (that can't be easily removed), not the particular method.

Anyway, give me a day or 2.

T
 
What would probably work is the really small repetitive curvy text like on bank notes, at least they aren't too noticeable, can easily be embedded into the picture and would be a nightmare to remove. Question is how would you do that sort of effect?
 
There are commercial plugins to simulate engraving, e.g.,

http://www.alphaplugins.com/products/products.php?menu=get_prod_id&prod_id=2

http://www.panopticum.com/ps/engraver/engraver.shtml

One can also get similar efx using only the native tools built into PS, Illustrator, etc.. Just Google {Guilloche patterns photoshop}.

Perhaps if the effect was limited to a few important areas of the image (eg, half of the face on a portrait), it could be made to work as a watermark, but I feel that sort of effect if done over the entire image, even at low opacity, would add a non-random texture to the image that would not give the viewer a good sense of the underlying image, one of the most important characteristics of a good watermark. A watermark has to be difficult to defeat (which engraving / Guilloche patterns would certainly do), but also, one doesn't want to kill one's sales by over-protecting one's images.

Tom M
 
you Can make it in Grey like the envato watermark or Creatifestore watermark its really easy you Cn contact me if you need any help :)
 
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