Watermarking is basically resorted to by professional photographers when offering photos for sale to clients to prevent them from hijacking the image free. Photoshop offers immense scope for fixing watermarks, position them precisely in an image, add texts with immense flexibility and reduce opacity of the watermark symbol so that the image can be seen through. It would be too much to expect of such adjustments in this software. Still it is a good software for ordinary photographers toting around with their contacts.

I know I'm going to get thumbed-down, but #4 is right -- Process Lasso is letting you update to version 5 today and it still shows as activated.

They do say it is permanent, but so easily removed by Inpaint, could someone please explain to a novice.

This one is the worst ever seen. It has 1 or 2 options only.

As a "protection" - Today's Offer - for Those who care about ownership (for Commercial, or personal reasons), Those who don't - usually don't bother.

Batch watermarking perhaps makes sense when the same(!) Developer offers Software that does Batch removing of watermarks? - should you change your mind, and people do.
Better still if the same Software performs both.
Just my observation since these two kind of Softwares exist, can have separate from each other "life" and - are often posing a question mark, or smile.."why would I, when I just.."

Watermarking is obviously for a reason, for me it is a source of great annoyance, the same goes for date left on pictures. YES, great idea for identifying Time in none-electronic way, and saving bother writing references on a back of prints.
When working with those images and wanting them to look arty, or optimized - Nightmare on legs!:)

There are Enthusiasts of watermarking, I might occasionally create something in CorelPSP, but always save as "layers" version, as well as merged, just in case I want to change anything later.

So thanks GAOTD, not for me, wait for it:)) - for watermarking in a strict sense, sure downloaded it to see "what's in it", out of curiosity..(perhaps some clever selection of "tubes"?), but disappointed with 1, as in one(!) - purple hand.., come on!

The only other use could be to add "a person"?, an object? of your choice (using some other photo as a source), and position it, or/and size - and then work on it (like hell:) in some other photo Program to make it look OK? That kind of use??

Batch Picture Protector looks to be a nice, small, web production tool with a few limitations that make it not for everybody -- it doesn't zoom out when necessary to show the entire image in the window, it doesn't do 32 bit .png [.png files with alpha transparency], & it doesn't re-size. The 1st means that you'll not likely use Batch Picture Protector for larger images, while the 2nd means if you like to use RGBA .png files, with today's GOTD you can't/won't. And given that many (most?) digital photos/images will be too big for normal use on a web page, a watermarking app that also re-sizes would be much more efficient. I like that you can save boilerplate text &/or images, then turn them on/off individually using checkboxes. And I think the ability to fine tune/adjust watermark placement is great, but there's no real-time preview, & entering +/- X & Y values doesn't shift watermarks in the direction I expected. Another nice touch, Batch Picture Protector can duplicate the original folder structure in the output folder you choose. For creating text watermarks there are several presets [e.g. "DEMO"], & you can set text font, size, color, use a colored rectangular background, & assign a controllable shadow &/or glow. Some people will likely be put off when they see that the included help file includes notices to register the software that was used to produce that help file [IMHO a bit tacky for shareware/payware, but not the end of the world].

Batch Picture Protector is just a 2 file app [3 if you include the help file], though by the time you add a readme & language files etc. you get 30 files, 1 folder, taking up ~3.5 MB. Setup adds an uninstall key to the registry, along with one key for the app & one for the registration data -- you might get a couple more keys related to the Windows Text Services Framework it uses [mentioned because I was surprised when I saw entries for Microsoft Speech].

With it's poor handling of larger images, Batch Picture Protector is best suited, seems designed IMHO for thumbnails &/or the smaller product pictures common to on-line stores, but with those stores at least, watermarking seems to be a vanishing trend... Meritline is one on-line store that has most of their product images watermarked [AFAIK it used to be all of their images, so maybe they're abandoning it too?]. Newegg, Target, Overstock, Woot etc. don't use them. I'm not 100% sure why -- IMHO as a shopper it does cheapen my impression of the store or site, & the universal goal of retail is to encourage you to pay more than bottom dollar [the higher the markup the better]. At any rate if you do choose to add watermarks to folders full of smaller images [with the probable exception of RGBA], Batch Picture Protector seems to be a solid choice.

Well I believe that "TSR Watermark Image Software" is BETTER than this and....FREE!!


Key features of "TSR Watermark Image Software":

· Add text watermark that is either normal, embossed, chiseled or watermarked with a border.

· Automatically rotate the watermarked picture based on the orientation EXIF tag - this is written to the image by many modern cameras.

· Add the text used to watermark the image to the EXIF information in the resulting file.

· Keep or drop EXIF information in jpeg files (Camera model/lense model/etc. etc.)

· Output the watermarked photo to JPEG, TIFF, PNG, BMP, GIF file format.

· Specify the quality of the watermarking output when saving as jpeg images

· Angle the text you use for your photo watermarking

· Insert background watermark in digital images, pictures, photos

· Resize images while watermarking the image/photo

· Watermark your photos using either another image, photo or picture

· Watermark your photos using your own text in the color and style you want to.

· Maintain directory structure in destination directory or combine all BATCH watermarked images into one directory

· Skip or overwrite existing watermarked images/photos in destination directory

· Automatically check for new version of the TSR Watermark Image Software


Full review here:

http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/windows/TSR-Watermark-Image-Software-Review-181442.shtml


Enjoy!!

Downloaded and installed fine on Windows 7. Seems to work as it claims to though I haven't fully tested it out on a big batch of photos yet. Will do that later today when I get the chance. I do like how you can put the watermark you are using anywhere within the picture or you can tile it so that it is over the entire picture. It does seem to be a very basic program but sometimes the basic programs are the best ones IMO.

I was toying with the idea of downloading this, but I just don't need batch watermarking capabilities since I don't produce mass images and place them on the net. Those that I do place on the net, are usually free to download and use.

I prefer the old method though. In Photoshop, I just open an image file or PSD and then add a new layer. I use the "Impact" font set to black, size depends on the image size. Rotate it to about 90 degrees and write my watermark. I then set the opacity to around 10 to 20 percent.

Thanks just the same GoTD, looking forward to what tomorrow will bring.

don't have no use for todays program but a word of info for everyone regarding todays update for processlasso, after install the program still shows as being activated so feel free to take the update presented today by that application

Program installed smoothly on Vista 64-bit, is easy to use, and offers many image-compression-selection, user-designated resolution, and Language-GUI options. Also, watermarked images may be output to JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG, PCX, TIF, TGA, and original-format options. Other features include adding/selecting images as single files, or in multiple groupings by folders, and removing selected individual images, or all images at once. Lastly, user may designate output-folder location for final watermarked image. The only downside I can see (at the moment) is that the GUI may be a bit basic and stark for some people, but someitmes basic can be a nice thing too (depends on a person's viewpoint).

Thanks, GOTD & SoftOrbits, for a nice program - and thanks, John, poster #2, for your link to some freeware alternatives - much appreciated.