WinWatermark Professional

Watermark - Adding Symbols

How many times have you uploaded a picture to the Internet without giving a second thought to ownership or copyright?  Do you know how easy it is for someone to steal a digital picture and claim ownership of that image?  Did you know there are videos on YouTube explaining how to remove the watermark from a photograph?  Did you know many of the photo websites allow Google to index every image, thus making them searchable for everyone on the Internet?  Did you know that any image uploaded to Facebook becomes their property?

In the digital age, we revel at being able to upload our eye-catching images in an easy, convenient way.  We, as a society, are quick to capture a single moment in time and upload the resulting image to a social networking site without giving a second thought to piracy or ownership.  

WinWatermark has built an easy-to-use application that assists photographers, amateur and professional alike, with protecting their digital masterpieces.  Watermarks placed in plain areas of an image can easily be removed.  Placement of the watermark is crucial to the success of protecting your digital copyright, as is size and opacity.  The smaller the watermark, the easier it is to remove.  The same holds true for opacity; the lighter the watermark, the easier it is to steal.

WinWatermark includes three very important symbols that can be added to a single image or a group of images quickly and easily.  The first of these symbols is the Copyright © symbol.  By adding the Copyright symbol to digital pictures, you convey ownership of the images.  While there will always be individuals who continue to steal images from the Internet, by creating a watermark you take a bold step in deterring those people.   As a best practice when creating a watermark, add the year in which the photo was taken and your name, in addition to the copyright symbol.  An example would be:

© 2012 WinWatermark Software

The second symbol included in WinWatermark software is the Trademark ™ symbol.  By using the ™ symbol, you are claiming the property as yours, but without having a federal registration.  A Trademark is typically associated with a saying, slogan, word, design, or symbol; something that defines pictures as yours is a trademark.  For instance, the McDonald’s golden arches, Columbia Sportswear Logo, or the Coco-Cola bottle are trademarks.  The use of a logo to claim digital images as your work is considered a trademark.   The original work, the digital images themselves, falls under the definition of copyright.  

The third symbol, Registered Trademark ®, indicates to the public that the trademark has been registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office.  The used of ® should only be used when the registration has been approved.  A good example of a registered trademark is the Nike “swoosh” logo.

NOTE:  Click any image in this article to enlarge the image OR right-click any image and select "Open Link in New Tab" to view the image full screen. 

Mac Users:  CTRL + Click = Right click

To add a watermark, including the Copyright Symbol, images must be first imported into WinWatermark.  As shown, the Library called Photos has 47 images imported.

In order to continue to the editing screen, images must then be selected (orange border) for processing.

After selecting images, click the EDIT button at the bottom of the screen.

Prior to adding a watermark to pictures, WinWatermark recommends the images be resized first.  By resizing images, building the watermark becomes a very easy process.

Select the image (blue border) to be resized and click the RESIZE button at the bottom of the screen.

NOTE:  Clicking the image’s dimensions also opens the RESIZE window.

For the purpose of this demonstration, only the current image has been resized to 800x600 as shown.  Learn more about how to resize images from our website.

Once the image has been resized, close the Resize window by clicking the X in the upper right hand corner of the pop-up window.

Notice the new dimensions (red circle) of the selected image, as shown in the Active Batch List.

To create a watermark that includes the Copyright Symbol, click the Text Watermark icon at the bottom of the window as shown.

As is true with any pop-up window in WinWatermark, grab the window by the title strip and move the window to the side.   By moving the Text Watermark window aside, the watermark can be viewed in real time as changes are made.

The text Property of Simplesoft, LLC has already been typed into the text area of the watermark window.  Notice the style applied (bold) and the positioning of the text (middle) on the active image.

To add the Copyright Symbol, click the EXIF Template button in the lower left hand corner of the Text Watermark window.

From the EXIF Template window, look for the symbols (red oval) that can be added to any watermark.

WinWatermark does not recommend adding all three symbols to a single watermark.  However, selecting all three symbols will demonstrate just how easily these three common symbols can be added to a watermark.

Click OK after making selections.

 Notice the code added to the text area of the watermark.

• © Copyright Symbol
•       Code needed:  #C

• ™ Trademark Symbol
•       Code needed:  #TM

• ® Registered Trademark
•       Code needed:  #R

Save time by manually entering the code needed for the desired symbol, within the main text area of the Watermark window.

Symbols can be included on the same line as other text if desired.

NOTE:  Including both the copyright and registered trademark to the watermark is inaccurate.  An image is deemed either one or the other.

Once the text and symbol have been entered into the text area, placement of the watermark follows.

Increasing the size of the watermark makes it more difficult to remove.

Placing the watermark over the entire image will also deter hackers from stealing your property.

The lower the opacity setting used, the less visible the watermark.  While this may be aesthetically pleasing to the viewer, low opacity settings make the watermark easier to remove.

When all settings have been made, click the APPLY button to enable the watermark on all images.

Click the X in the upper right hand corner of the Text Watermark window to close the pop-up.

From the editing window, notice the text watermark listed at the bottom of the Active Batch List. (red arrows)

The watermark will be applied to all images in the Active Batch List.

To disable the watermark, deselect the checkmark.

To completely delete the watermark, click the X in the upper right hand corner of the watermark box.

By deselecting the checkmark, the watermark disappears from the active image.

By selecting a new image, as shown, and enabling the watermark (checkmark), the resulting watermark is very small and more difficult to see.

Notice the dimensions of the leaf image are very large (3264 x 2448), which in turns means the watermark will appear smaller.

The picture of the rose was resized to 800 x 600, leaving the watermark appearing to span the entire picture diagonally.

Remember, when building a text watermark, simply type the necessary code for the symbol desired.