Image copyright question, before the Brady Bunch uses our pics against us...

[Gewehr98]

I've seen where the anti-gunners have used Oleg's nicely-composed firearms images in their own sites like the VPC, among others.  I don't know how well Oleg's managed to keep his images from being used for the wrong purposes since then, but as many know, a lot of gun photos on TFL and THR are mine.  So I'm going through my huge .jpg library, both on my server here at home and also on my website account, trying to mark them as my intellectual property.  I don't want them to be used or re-published without my express consent, for obvious reasons.  Short of taking each image into Adobe CS2 or ThumbsPlus and editing the IPTC info by hand, is there a quick and easy way for me to do a blanket edit on all my images?  How about a personal watermark on each image, is that also something I have to do one at a time? 

My SAR-1 and I thank you for the help! 

[Manedwolf]

Make a watermark layer, save it as a separate PSD, and then use the Batch actions to resize all your gun pics to the same size and add the watermark to each, placing them in a new directory?

[Gewehr98]

Ok, now there's an idea!

Not so sure I'd have an easy time resizing all my images to the same dimensions, but for the non-standard ones, I suppose I could just layer in the watermark one at a time. 

[roo_ster]

The Image Magick command-line toolset might be what you need.

I use the mogrify tool to resize whole directories full of images all the time.

[Gewehr98]

It's not that I can't resize them en-mass, it's just that I often crop some of my firearm images, like my little friend above, to keep filesizes down, extraneous content out, and still maintain some semblance of resolution.  So the SAR-1 image above was cropped quite a bit from the original Canon PowerShot picture, which is why you don't see my document shredder on the end of that power cord on the right, nor is the top of the secretary's desk visible, etc.

So were I to resize such images to a fixed standard, I fear I would introduce distortion after I already made them a custom dimension via my amateur cropping efforts.  For those oddball sizes, I'd just as soon keep them in those dimensions, and just add the watermark manually.

[Manedwolf]

It's not that I can't resize them en-mass, it's just that I often crop some of my firearm images, like my little friend above, to keep filesizes down, extraneous content out, and still maintain some semblance of resolution.  So the SAR-1 image above was cropped quite a bit from the original Canon PowerShot picture, which is why you don't see my document shredder on the end of that power cord on the right, nor is the top of the secretary's desk visible, etc.

So were I to resize such images to a fixed standard, I fear I would introduce distortion after I already made them a custom dimension via my amateur cropping efforts.  For those oddball sizes, I'd just as soon keep them in those dimensions, and just add the watermark manually.

You can also specify only the width or height limit, and the other dimension will be relative to match. So if you declare that they'll all be 800px wide, you might end up with some 800x620, some 800x457, etc, depending on how you cropped the original. If you make your watermark as a pattern fill, (so it repeats diagonally, for example) you can then apply it to any image as a low-transparency layer fill.

[Gewehr98]

Ok, so I'd be doing this watermark layer creation and image flattening via my Adobe Photoshop CS2, or should I attempt something similar using my Quark Express 7.02?  I suppose either has the horsepower to do something like that, and I'm running them on an IBM Intellistation M Pro w/dual Xeon 2.4 chips and 1 Gig of memory.  (I have both software suites because I use them with my monster Tektronix Phaser 780 tabloid color laser)

I'm not the first to try it, I know.  I see Zak Smith is doing the same with his firearm images:



Mine don't have to be so blatantly in one's face, perhaps more subtly transparent, but still plainly visible.

[Manedwolf]

Ok, so I'd be doing this watermark layer creation and image flattening via my Adobe Photoshop CS2, or should I attempt something similar using my Quark Express 7.02?  I suppose either has the horsepower to do something like that, and I'm running them on an IBM Intellistation M Pro w/dual Xeon 2.4 chips and 1 Gig of memory.  (I have both software suites because I use them with my monster Tektronix Phaser 780 tabloid color laser)

I'm not the first to try it, I know.  I see Zak Smith is doing the same with his firearm images:



Mine don't have to be so blatantly in one's face, perhaps more subtly transparent, but still plainly visible.

Photoshop, yes. It has batch stuff and script stuff to handle that.

And the problem with the image you're showing is that the Bradyites can and would just clip the bottom off and use it. For context-sensitive things, I make a tile-repeated faint watermark across the entire image, at about 8-10% transparency.

[Gewehr98]

Just wanted to say "Thanks!"

As seen by my AK image above, all the files hosted on my website are now watermarked. 

A little Adobe Photoshop CS2, some batch processing, swapping watermarked images via FireFTP, and voila'!   

[Buckeyenomad]

You can register them with the U.S. Copyright office.   It's about $40.00 for as many as you can burn to a CD.  Then sue anyone that you don't want using them if they show up.

Steve

[Buckeyenomad]

I just did a search on www.ourppa.com  Searched the forums for Copyright and found this:  http://ourppa.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4807

You may have to register, first and last name, but it's a safe site.

Steve

[Zak Smith]

Hi guys,

I do all my stuff in Linux, including the watermark flow.

Here is the code:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
WMF=$HOME/demigodllc/demigod_watermark.png
find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -name \*.jpg | while read a; do
        echo $a
        composite -compose src-over -gravity southwest $WMF $a $a
done

Copyright exists from the work creation, and marking it is not required.  Marking photos is a good way to "remind" people it is a copyrighted work.  And if the VPC or some other group uses it without your permission, you have your lawyer start sending letters....

ETA: my watermark is pretty crude just because I lack photoshop/gimp skils.

[Gewehr98]

Zak,

Welcome to APS, and again, many thanks for your help with the whole copyright thing. I used your image as an example of what I'd like to do with mine, if you wish, I will remove them from my message.

My workstation here is set up with removable hard drive cartridges, and I'm finishing up the Debian Linux boot drive this week.  Then I'll try something along the Corel/Gimp side of the house.  I will no longer upload any of my personal pics without some sort of watermark, either visible or invisible.

(Although I found that the cheapest I could get a Digimarc account was $79.00 per 1000 images.)