adding a watermark

[azjennifer]

Hello,

is there a way that this application can add a watermark to uploaded  pictures?

Thanks,


JT

[Nibbler]

Search the board.

[azjennifer]

any ideas where to start?

jt

[Nibbler]

I would suggest the section called Watermarking & image manipulation, but it's up to you.

[tatty]

I watermark and tag my images before upload, and resize them all
I use a software for that: pictureshark, which you can download for free here: http://www.picture-shark.com

Anyway... searching the board is also a wonderful solution 

[sbpoole]

The forum is full of, or should I say cluttered with watermarking mods, about 7 pages of different stuff.  It makes finding a solution a time consuming task.  I have tried all of them and still have not found one that works.  I did have a working watermark mod with cpg 1.2, but since upgrading to 1.4.x, I haven't found one yet.  That is one thing to consider before upgrading to a new verion of cpg.  Plug-ins would be a better solution than modifying a half dozen files or themes, as it gets wiped out upon upgrading.  Watermarking your images before uploading is a solution that I don't like because it will also watermark the thumbnails.  I would think that watermarking on the fly as a plug-in would be a relatively simple task, but I guess not.  I am not a good programmer so I have to wait until someone else figures it out.  A no right click mod will keep the computer novices from stealing your images, but screen capture software or simply sending yourself an ecard will net you a printable image.  It is something that I hope will come in the future because I see this as an important element for those of us that try to make a living selling prints off of our sites, not too easy when people can print the images from your site themselves. 

[Stramm]

on the fly watermarking you can only use on small galleries. As soon as you get some visits your resources will get eaten up. A solution I don't like at all.
Permanant watermarks only need CPU when the pics get uploaded. Disadvantage is that the watermark is permanent. Usually no way to undo it.

Since CPG 1.3 my watermark mod is availabale and I think in the meanwhile relatively bug free. I've tried to combine both, speed and the possibility to undo watermarks and it's working. However it's not possible to do it as a plugin but I've made the modding process as easy as possible (upload files and run an update script.. done).
http://forum.coppermine-gallery.net/index.php?topic=28367.0

As said, on the fly watermarking is only an option if your gallery gets only a few hits. With some more traffic this CPU intense process will bog down your server

[Gizmo]

I have several thousand files in my gallery and most of them watermarked. I use a method that involves a little more work (but easy to do) which allows me complete control over what photo (thumbnail, intermediate, original) gets a mark. I use FastStone Photo Viewer to resample the photos and set the longest edge to 640 pixels and use FileZilla to batch upload to the albums directory. Since I don't want my thumbnails to have a watermark but all originals, I use "batch add files" to add them into the gallery so that the thumbnails and intermediate photos are created (they have a prefix of "thumb_" and "normal_" added to them). If you use your FTP client and check the directory where you uploaded the photos, you will see that there are files with these prefixes there.

The next step is to take the photos that you uploaded and add a watermark to them (I recommend making a backup before doing so especially if these are the REAL originals). Again, I use FastStone but Picture-Shark works great too and you can use the same watermark for all photos or a different one. You can also place the mark anywhere you like on the photo and set the transparency. Both of these programs allow for batch editing. Once this is done, you just upload the marked photos to the same directory overwriting the files in the albums. When you surf the albums, you'll see that the photo in the popup window has a watermark.

If you want the intermediate photos to have a watermark, download the files with the prefix "normal_" to your computer. Run them through the same watermarking process above and then upload them back to the album directory. Now all but the thumbnails have a watermark and your intermediate and original can have a different mark!

Like I said, it's a bit more involved but simple to do and allows for complete control over your photos without having to change CPG code or worrying about server overload on a busy gallery. I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Billy

FastStone Photo Viewer : http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm
FileZilla : http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla
Picture-Shark : http://www.picture-shark.com/

[azjennifer]

Thank you for you advice it is what I was looking for however, with regard  to the thumbnails and the enlarged pop up....

In what folder does the large versions reside?  I can add the watermark no problem.  I use Discreet Media Cleaner  6 and it is pretty good.  But I only want the H2O mark on the images the user see's when they what to view the image popup.

Example: http://www.wickedmag.com/cpg143/displayimage.php?album=9&pos=6

When the user clicks on the large image it gives you a pop up.  Where are those images stored?

Thanks,

jen

[Joachim Müller]

in the folder you uploaded them to: the full-sized pic, the intermediate image and the thumbnail are all stored in the same folder and just differ by the prefixes you have set up in coppermine's config. You (as coppermine admin) should populate your gallery by using FTP-uploads plus batch-add. This method allows you to create a folder structure on your server's hard drive that mimmicks your gallery's category/album structure. It also enables you to locate your uploads pretty fast. The HTTP uploads feature has been made for your user's uploads only, they go into sub-folders of the userpics folder. It's pretty easy to find out where your pics reside, just make a right-click, properties on your pics and you'll see where they are stored. You should get familiar with such things first before trying to mess with existing pics. Especially when being unexperienced it's mandatory to make frequent backups, especially before modifying stuff, so you can savely go back if things go wrong.

[azjennifer]

That make sense.  Thanks for helping out.