How to protect your images
Any image displayed on any web page can easily be downloaded without your knowledge, so adding a watermark can help you to protect your intellectual property.You can add up to two watermarks and one label to each image.
When placing a watermark, it's best positioned and sized so that it's very difficult for someone to re-use your image without first requesting a watermark-free version from you. In other words, it should cover some or all of the useful part of the image.
The first watermark is a large © symbol which is just less than the width of the image. Use this where it's important that your image is never republished without your permission. For example you might use this in a photographic gallery catalogue page. Turn the symbol off by unchecking the box at the top of the yellow section.
The second watermark can overlay the first and is a line of text. The default text is '© Copyright 2012 All Rights Reserved' but you can enter almost anything you like. The leading © symbol is created automatically for you, so you don't need to enter it. The position and size of the watermark can be adjusted by clicking the appropriate radio buttons. If you select the middle position, the text will be shown diagonally across the centre of the image. Clear the copyright text box and click 'Update' to remove this watermark.
You can add a label, consisting of white text on a blue background box, over the top of the image (including any watermarks you've created). The default label text is 'Unauthorised copying prohibited' but you can enter almost any text you like. This is useful for reinforcing the 'no-copy' request or for adding an image title, number or price. Clear the label text box and click 'Update' to remove the label.
Original images must be gif, png or jpg format, their file size must be less than 2Mb and they should not contain more than about 20 megapixels (about 5,000 pixels by 4,000). Images with a transparent background are unsuitable. Use an image editing program to adjust image sizes or to convert bmp images to a suitable format before loading. The final image is always returned in jpg format. Changes to watermarks and labels may take a while to appear on very large images or over slow internet connections.
Once you've saved your watermarked image, upload it to your webserver and edit the page that contains it so that the watermarked version is shown instead of the original image.
Images are not stored on our server nor are they 'grabbed' for other purposes when uploaded. Images uploaded via this page must conform to decency and legality standards.
