creating watermarks for photos

Sat Jul 27 22:18:46 EDT 2013

Roy,

Actually Gallica presents images with a kind of watermark--it's essentially a metadata subtitle that marks the source as gallica / BnF. Note that they don't alter the image itself--but dynamically generate an attribution line underneath the image that gets incorporated into their JPEG2000 / JPEG images (essentially adding pixels to the bottom). 

See http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b69267651.r=san+francisco.langEN

I share your concern that libraries (nor museums nor archives) not degrade their resources as a means to monopolizing access to them--why put them on the web if you don't want people to view & use them? But I also know that we work with plenty of donors and partners who are not yet ready to embrace open and unencumbered access to their materials. I hope we'll get there. But until we do, personally I think the BnF's approach is an elegant compromise between preserving the integrity of the asset while tagging it with its provenance. 

- Tom

On Jul 18, 2013, at 1:13 PM, Roy Tennant wrote:

> I'm a little surprised that so far no one is questioning the
> underlying motivation. If "watermarking" means what I think it means,
> then doing so basically ruins the photo for any reasonable use. Why
> would a public library wish to do this? I can remember discussions of
> watermarking in the 90s, but somehow I thought we were beyond that
> now. I guess not.
> 
> Does the Library of Congress watermark their photos? No. Gallica? No
> again. In fact, who does except commercial companies like Corbis? I've
> put thousands of my images up for people to use sans watermark, and
> yet I still make some sales for commercial use. I ask that online use
> be credited, and many people have done that. Of course there will be a
> few bad actors, but there always will be no matter what you do. I'm
> having a hard time seeing the problem that is trying to be solved.
> Roy
> 
> On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 12:24 PM, Young, Stephanie J. (CDC/OSELS/EAPO)
> (CTR) <wdq9 at cdc.gov> wrote:
>> TechSmith's SnagIt is screen capturing software, but you can open images in their editor to add watermarks and tags. It's only $50 and very easy to use. http://www.techsmith.com/snagit.html
>> 
>> Best,
>> Steph
>> 
>> Stephanie Young | Systems Librarian (LAC Group)
>> Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
>> Public Health Library and Information Center
>> Tel: 304-285-6171 | Email: wdq9 at cdc.gov
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Web technologies in libraries [mailto:WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Stephen ( Steve ) Sloan
>> Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2013 3:10 PM
>> To: WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU
>> Subject: Re: [WEB4LIB] creating watermarks for photos
>> 
>> Hello.
>> One of the best technologies for photograph collections is Lightroom.
>> It's an Adobe product that enables all sorts of enhancements to digital photographs and allows you to add metadata to items for later retrieval.
>> Quite powerful, and easier to grasp than Photoshop.  An option is to add a watermark to all the images as you export them (usually in jpeg format).
>> You can design the watermark yourself.
>> 
>> It's around $200.
>> 
>> Steve
>> 
>> 
>> Stephen Sloan
>> Head Librarian
>> Science and Forestry Library
>> University of New Brunswick
>> Fredericton, NB Canada
>> (506) 453-4814
>> sloan at unb.ca
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 13-07-18 3:29 PM, "Andy Boze" <Boze.1 at ND.EDU> wrote:
>> 
>>> If the idea is to create a visual watermark, IrfanView might be a good
>>> choice. It has a batch mode so you could watermark dozens of images at
>>> a time, as well as one at a time. It's free for home/educational use,
>>> very inexpensive otherwise.
>>> 
>>> ???? 7/18/2013 1:50 PM, Andy Boze ??????:
>>>> Are you looking to create a visual or digital (steganographic)
>>>> watermark?
>>>> 
>>>> ???? 7/18/2013 1:36 PM, Thomas Edelblute ??????:
>>>>> Our Local History curator is planning a project of posting
>>>>> additional historical  photos and we are finding that the photos
>>>>> currently available are ending up all  kinds of places. So she is
>>>>> asking what the best way is of creating a watermark  for the new
>>>>> photos that will be going up in the future to identify the source as
>>>>> coming from the City of Anaheim.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thomas Edelblute
>>>>> 
>>>>> Public Access Systems Coordinator
>>>>> 
>>>>> Anaheim Public Library
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
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>>>>> 2013-07-18
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>>> 
>>> --
>>> Andy Boze, Associate Librarian
>>> University of Notre Dame
>>> 208A Hesburgh Library
>>> (574) 631-8708
>>> 
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2013-07-27
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