About "hidden" (and/or embedded) watermarkers:
Yash provide his opinion on this page:
http://www.uconomix.com/Products/uMark/Blog/types-of-photo-watermarks
My take is somewhat different:
1) The usage of one (visible) does not exclude the possibility to apply the also an invisible one.
2) True that invisible, embedded watrmarking can be defeated using appropriate software and techniques. (Almost like removing exif data.)
3)With invisible, hidden watermarking, you have better protection.
Some hidden watermarkers "survive" almost any image manibulation like, resizing, resampling, cropping, color trasformation, application of any kind of filters and so on.
Steganography is one of the most common system you can use.
Hidden watermarking can be changed or removed only using the original program. Also, if you protect the "hidden message" with a strong password you'll get an almost unbreakable protection of your rights.

Of course every protection can be defeated but an invisible hidden watermarking can be removed only using three systems that for evident reasons I'll not mention here...

That said, happy watermarking!

I've tried to install the programme twice on my machine and once on my wife's machine - and it will not provide a "registered" version, even after running "activate" again. Not very encouraging...

I know there are other (free) programmes like this available, and it is certainly true that you cannot REALLY provide much protection to the photos you wish to display on the Internet by a simple watermark -- but I did at least want to try it for other reasons (such as putting my website URL). And for more than just 15 days.

Anyway, as I have noted here before, the only effective way to protect your photos from being ripped off over the Internet is to put only very low resolution copies there -- because you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear! ie. You simply cannot put back IN, what is missing (in terms of resolution) from a photograph.

At least, not yet....

@ #4 - One use for watermarking software even if you are not selling the photos is, protecting images if you sell the product in the photo on eBay. It sucks when you do all the work and take photos of what you're selling and then someone comes along and steals them reaping the benefits of your work. Most people that see the watermarks don't bother, they move on to other images or look for a manufacturer's image instead.

If you can mark your photos with your domain or website name you can also possibly get more customers just by having photos throughout the web. Plus, with a watermark you are also able to put information into the actual photo that can assist someone if you are selling the product in the photo, depending on what info you want to convey.

Even though watermarks are easily removed, I like the context menu option to be able to add watermark with mouse click and downloaded this app solely for that option. Good job and thanks UCONOMIX & GOTD

@15 Yash listed "... 7 uses of a watermark software ..."
May I just add that another very useful (and profitable) way of using a watermark is for adding a web address to your pictures. I've found it's a cheap and effective way of increasing traffic to your site or blog.

# Yash, developer of umark

Hi Yash,
just a question for you: are you sure that any watermarks made by your software cannot be removed using the CLONE TOOL of FREE and Open Source Photo Editors apps like GIMP and IRFANVIEW??

http://www.gimpology.com/submission/view/how_to_remove_a_watermark_the_fast_amp_easy_way_

As for the current low user rating of your product, don't worry about that: unfortunately most people here give a Thumbs UP or DOWN according to their personal needs only.

Cheers.

As for free software, everything that is paid has a free alternative especially for software. When Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator were free Opera was a paid browser and people bought it. Even today you have paid browsers for iOS when Safari is free and very capable. But people still pay money for software.

They are not fools. Everybody has their own reason. People surely are finding some utility in uMark and are buying it. Some like the UI, some like the batch processing, some like to use the software in their native language. Reasons are many. Not every free software has what one is looking for.

Even uMark is free by the way. You can use uMark in free mode after first 15 days of trial expires. For quickly marking a single photo we also have www.uMarkOnline.com.

But the biggest question I'd like to ask is, on GOTD everything is free!! So why crib about why and what a software author chooses to charge for his software? :)

Thanks for the comments everyone. I am the developer of uMark.

Thanks for the review Ashraf. We are going to add the support for auto sizing watermarks in the next version because some people want it and some want their watermarks to be of fixed size.

As for ability to remove watermarks, yes, no watermark is un-removable. It's just part of the image and a Photoshop pro can remove it. If someone is determined to use your photo he will use it. Adding a watermark just makes the process time consuming. A thief will pass over a watermarked photo in favor of an unmarked one.

Also if you think watermarking is only for professional photographers, think again. Software like uMark is essentially about adding a piece of text or image on a photo so you can do much more with it. Here are 7 uses of a watermark software that we could think of - http://bit.ly/15JO6wW

As for requirement of .Net framework. That comes pre-installed with Vista, 7 and 8. Windows XP is a 13 year old OS. We have to move on. At least MS is still supporting .Net framework for XP.

To today's giveaway, thanks GOATD but I'm already a user of similar software from here. My main point in posting is to remind everyone here that if they are ever worried about whether an image of their own has been nicked and published on the Net by someone else, or if they're not sure of the authenticity of a photograph in, for example, an online sales listing, then TinEye reverse image search really should be in their toolbox:

http://tineye.com/

As to the actual value of watermarking, short of using one to plaster over half an image in transparent type, it's probably a waste of time: any scammer can use a stripped-down Photoshop app, or similar, and do a freehand crop of the downloaded image (where the height-width measurements are left blank.) Either that, or just merge the watermark into the background with Clone Stamp or similar.

In fact: there's no sense in putting any image up on the Net for public consumption -- whether watermarked or not -- and not expect someone, somewhere to nick it if it's good enough. That's why commercial photographers tend to use very large overlays: it ruin s the image, but they don't care because they're in the business of selling a service, not providing their wares to the world free of charge.

As to TinEye, its value is proven very much after-the-fact and no way can it track every single picture ever published on the Net. However, however. . . Speaking now from personal experience, we were once intrigued by an eBay UK motors listing complete with no less than six images of an almost new car. The listing was long and detailed. The seller even had a trade name, ending in 'Autos'.

Routinely, we ran the seller's pictures through TinEye. Within 10 seconds, it traced them to the website of a genuine, major car dealership 200 miles distant from the eBay seller. We notified the dealership and they notified eBay and they also notified the police. Six months later, we received en email from the dealership thanking us for the tip-off and reporting that the eBay "motor trader" was now behind bars for that offence and umpteen others.

Moral: watermarking is only one of the ways out there of protecting your own interests, whether it's your pictures or your purse. As freeware, TinEye should be a must-have.

With a right software, anyone can remove any markings from a photo, even if there are no layers or Exif info in the photo or even encrypted.
Unless your photos are art and trademarked and registered with patents and published as such, anyone can modify your photos once they find the way in the public forums.

This software install fine on windows xp too, although the system requirement never mention xp is supported.

I would normally use Photoshop to add watermarks when I need them. However, this program opens fast and allows easy batch processing. Not bad for someone who needs this kind of program. It downloaded fine. I followed the instructions included in the download and it installed and activated fine (Win7 x64). The program does what is says and rather well I thought. That said, what do I really need it for? Regardless, I'll keep it installed, you never know. Maybe I'll try it next time I post several pictures to ebay.

This seems to make sence. It is good protect your pix. If there is enough responce, enough people just need to give thums up this will be a success. I could use this later or some time. $ 29 small price to protect your imagines. So I say yes and Thank...

This is the first time i won't agree with asraf. Automatic resize is not a good idea. And full screen start up is better than small screen start up. It is like you want all software to start in minimal size: adobe, ms office, corel, firefox, chrome, etc.

The only way to protect your photos is not to publish them. I have removed many so called protection marks easily I do this then send the photo back to who published it. I am not using any for profit. I find very often a marked photo loses its apeal and becomes a waist of time.

Hi., Installed, but the software do start with error report and closing itself.
Waste of time,
Have a nice day,
Jozsef

Ashraf;

Thank you so very much for your educated and valuable review of this product. Your point about the standard sized watermark was so right on: a watermark that is appropriate on a photo of 200 by 300 pixels would appear like a microdot on a photo of 1200 by 1600. If you have a mix of variious sized photos you can't run them as a batch.

I look forward to your input every day. I don't always agree with your review but I always value it and appreciate your knowledge and experience. Please keep up your good work.

Thanks,

Marty Cordova

Today’s giveaway looks like a pretty decent watermarking tool...
Supports for BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG and TIFF formats, can add text or a logo as a watermark in batch processing, with the ability to customize the font formatting options for text etc...

As Shawn said yes there are tons of free stuff online....

Yes it's true...but why never mention a damn one??

The real question is: what does this GAOTD do more than the following FREE ALTERNATIVES which can in the end justify its price (30 bucks)?

http://www.easy-watermark-studio.com/en/lite-version
http://www.customdworks.com/phHelper.aspx
http://www.cooltweak.com/?lng=en-GB
http://www.bordermaker.nl/en/features
http://www.gphotoshow.com/exif-iptc-watermarker.php
http://www.lujosoft.net/_content/_utilities/WatermarkPro.html
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Digital-Photo-Tools/Visual-Watermark-Free.shtml

FREE ONLINE SERVICES:
http://www.watermark-images.com
http://picmarkr.com

Just to mention the best ones I'm aware of...

Waiting for your feedback!!

(Yawn> I just don't understand why this software is warranted for anyone that isn't in the business of selling photos. The software description should in fact extol the virtues of the concept. So for me, it's (yawn> time to move on.

(yaaaaaaaawwwwn>But I am open minded if anyone would care to (yaaawwn> educated me. ;)

@Ashraf
*Does not automatically resize watermarks relative to input image size

Heck if it did I'd lose it with a watermark program I like my logo's to stay one standard size.

*Requires .NET Framework 3.5 or higher

Heck in a year time we'll be dammed with no xp support so 3.5 the least of my worries...

*Always starts full screen (annoying!)

I prefer a program that starts full screen and gives me the cancel button than a software such as formatfactory that unless it's full screen you ain't even getting a exit option.

-=-=-=-=-
Today's giveaway a decent one... yes there are tons of free stuff online but this one gives a proper blend to the watermark and your photos.

I have version 1.3 from an earlier giveaway. I thought I would give this a try to see how the process went. That turned out to be a bad choice. Despite the requirement listing of "Net Framework 3.5 or higher", the installer attempted to install Net Framework 4.0. No questions asked, it just started the install process. Now there is nothing wrong with Net Framework in itself but the installer should have examined my system and seen that my XP SP2 system can not handle Net Framework 4.0. Thank goodness I had my Wondershare Time Freeze activated. After a reboot, my computer seems OK.

So I will have to pass on this off and be happy with my version 1.3. Thank you for your great work GOTD team. As for the publisher, Uconomix Technologies, I will withhold my thank yous due to the rudeness of the installer.

Pros
*Allows users to add text and/or image watermarks
*Supports batch processing
*Supports JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, and TIFF images
*You have the option to leave output image format the same as input image format (i.e. no conversion)
*Easy to use and works fast

Cons
*Does not automatically resize watermarks relative to input image size
*Requires .NET Framework 3.5 or higher
*Always starts full screen (annoying!)

Free Alternatives
7 free watermark programs for Windows

Final Verdict
Click here for final verdict and full review