Section 84. Add Copyright Information

84. Add Copyright Information

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

87 Change Image Size or Resolution

Digimarc Corporation, a world leader in digital watermarking, in coordination with Paint Shop Pro's Image, Watermarking, Embed Watermark command, can provide you with a secure method of protecting your copyrighted images and tracking their use on the Web. The cost, however, is practical only for a professional photographer. In this task, I'll show you a simple way to watermark your own imagesfor free! This method creates a copyright notice that you can embed softly within your own images.

84. Add Copyright Information

The photographs you take are already your property and protected by law. All you have to do to claim copyright over your photo is to place your ‚ mark in some visible location. With a PSP image, you can place your ‚ mark in the Image Information dialog box, but that notice can easily be stripped away, even though it's actually illegal for someone other than you (the claimant) to do so. This is where direct embedding of the copyright notice within the image itself comes in handy. Of course, you can't copyright just anything. For example, you can't copy an image off a web page, make changes to it, and then copyright the result.

TIP

To make it easier to add a copyright to other images, record steps 7 to 10 as a script. You can then invoke the script during batch processing of new images, or within any open image.

1.	Create a New Image Start a new image by clicking the New button on the Standard toolbar. Set Width to 900, Height to 300 , and Units to Pixels . Set the Resolution to 72 Pixels/Inch . Select Raster Background , with Color Depth at 16 Million Colors . Click the Color box, choose white, and click OK . Click OK again.
2.	Draw a Rectangle On the Materials palette, change the foreground color to black and the background color to white . On the Tools toolbar, click the Preset Shape tool. On the Tool Options palette, from the Shape list, select Rounded Rectangle . Enable the Anti-alias and Create As Vector check boxes, and disable Retain Style . Select the #1 Solid Line Style and set the Width to 25 . In the image window, draw a rectangle that nearly fills the window. From the menu bar, choose Layers, Convert to Raster Layer .
3.	Add Copyright Text On the Tools toolbar, click the Text tool. On the Tool Options palette, choose Arial font, 42 point Size , and center Alignment . Set the background color to black. In the image window, click in the center of the rectangle. The Text Entry dialog box appears. Press and hold the Alt key and type 0169 on the numeric keypad to enter the copyright symbol (the ‚ symbol). Type the year followed by your name . Click Apply . NOTE The U.S. Copyright Office states that official notice of copyright must contain the word copyright or the circle-C symbol, the year the work was first published, and the claimant's name. The use of the copyright notice does not require advance permission from, or registration with, the Copyright Office. If necessary, you can adjust the position of the text by dragging it. You'll want to center the text within the rectangle. When you're done, choose Layers, Convert to Raster Layer from the menu bar.
4.	Merge All Layers Choose Layers, Merge, Merge All (Flatten) from the menu bar to flatten the image so that you can add embossing.
5.	Add Embossing Choose Effects, Texture Effects, Emboss from the menu bar. The Emboss effect changes the copyright notice to a mostly gray image with raised text. The edge of the rounded rectangle appears raised as well.
6.	Save Copyright Image Click the Save button. Type copyright in the File Name box. Select Paint Shop Pro Image from the Save As Type list. Click Save .
7.	Copy the Copyright Image When it comes time for you to attach a copyright notice to an original image, open the copyright.pspimage file. Resize the copyright notice to fit the image you want to watermark by choosing Image, Resize , entering new dimensions, and clicking OK . When the copyright notice is the correct size, click the Copy button on the Standard toolbar.
8.	Insert Copyright Open any image you want to copyright. Choose Edit, Paste, As New Layer from the menu. The copyright notice is placed on its own layer, on top of the image. Use the Move tool if needed to reposition the notice. TIP Place the copyright over an important part of the imagesomething that cannot be cropped out without ruining the photo.
9.	Lighten Copyright On the Layer palette, select the copyright layer. (It will be on the top of the list because it was the layer most recently created.) Click the Blend Mode list and choose Soft Light . TIP If the copyright fades away too much, select Hard Light instead. Lighten the effect even more by adjusting the copyright layer's opacity by dragging the Opacity slider in the Layer palette to the left.
10.	Flatten Image Choose Layers, Merge, Merge All (Flatten) . The copyright notice is now permanently "embedded" in the image file. Save the image.