funkymonkey66 Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 Within less than 2 months I have come across 2 different businesses that stole pictures of my candles and melts off my website. One of them didn't even try to alter or crop the image to even pass it as being different. Then come to find out that the other one had my melts on all of her eBay listings, like 100 of my image in a row. I completely freaked out and called as well as sent less than friendly emails demanding they take my pictures down. WHY don't people just buy stock images like the rest of us for the pictures they are not capable of taking themselves? We are talking pennies each here for stock images but still people would rather steal! I worked so hard taking those pictures and spent hours editing them just to have some jerk make money off it.Now I have to waste a day going back to ALL of my images and write my Logo on them one by one. I probably should have done in the first place but I hate the way it looks. I can only do this with my photo editing software that I have that can just write a name over the images. I would like a true watermark thought the image without making it look like I scribbled over it. Does anyone have any recommendations for easy to use software to do this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernadette Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 The last time I had someone steal a picture of mine on eBay(and they even cropped out my wording! ), I sent it in as a violation, referring to their item number as well as mine, and they took her auction off and suspended her. I would do that in the meantime. Buyers have a tendency to go by the pictures more than the user id, and the next time they see your picture, if they've purchased bad product from someone else, they may think twice about buying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happy_paws_haven Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 We use uMark Lite. You can watermark up to 50 images at one time. The other thing we like to do with our eBay images, is overlay them with a blank gif. That way the lazy people that would just like to right click only get a blank image. With a bit of work, one can of course copy the original, but most people are to lazy to do so. The link below will give you an example of the blank gif overlayhttp://cgi.ebay.com/Bella-Donna-Stevie-Nicks-CROSS-STITCH-PATTERN-CHART_W0QQitemZ180173627523QQihZ008QQcategoryZ34042QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bravo5 Posted January 23, 2008 Share Posted January 23, 2008 I use Photoshop to add watermarks. You can also do tricky things like manipulating a few specific pixels, where they would be really un-noticable, but you would know what to look for to prove they were your pictures. You can create photoshop actions to do these tasks, and just run the action on however many images you want.We use uMark Lite. You can watermark up to 50 images at one time. The other thing we like to do with our eBay images, is overlay them with a blank gif. That way the lazy people that would just like to right click only get a blank image. With a bit of work, one can of course copy the original, but most people are to lazy to do so. The link below will give you an example of the blank gif overlayhttp://cgi.ebay.com/Bella-Donna-Stevie-Nicks-CROSS-STITCH-PATTERN-CHART_W0QQitemZ180173627523QQihZ008QQcategoryZ34042QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItemSmart idea!! :highfive: That will actually confuse a lot of people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erinmfritz Posted January 24, 2008 Share Posted January 24, 2008 I have been working on my site lately and one of the suggestions that came up is to put a transparent picture on top of your photo so when someone right clicks your picture, all they get is the transparent part. I thought that was interesting so I thought I would pass it along. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkymonkey66 Posted January 24, 2008 Author Share Posted January 24, 2008 Thank you guys for your responses. I will look into the photoshop software, how do you overlay a transparent picture? Is that done with the photoshop or is that something different?Also, I never thought about buyers going by the pictures instead of the user names. That is a good point. I have no idea if her melts are any good or not and who knows how many she sold using my image. I made the mistake of contacting the theif directly before I went to ebay and she took the pictures down before ebay had a chance to see them. They gave me links for copyright disputes etc, but they said since the seller removed them there was nothing more they could do. Next time I will do the violation first so they get suspended Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faye_SC Posted January 25, 2008 Share Posted January 25, 2008 You can use Paint Shop Pro also, they have a free trial download. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella1952 Posted January 25, 2008 Share Posted January 25, 2008 The Gimp is an open source image editing and manipulation program that is full-featured and free. Haven't found anything that Photoshop, etc. can do that The Gimp can't... http://www.gimp.org/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissMary Posted January 25, 2008 Share Posted January 25, 2008 We use uMark Lite. You can watermark up to 50 images at one time. The other thing we like to do with our eBay images, is overlay them with a blank gif. That way the lazy people that would just like to right click only get a blank image. With a bit of work, one can of course copy the original, but most people are to lazy to do so. The link below will give you an example of the blank gif overlayhttp://cgi.ebay.com/Bella-Donna-Stevie-Nicks-CROSS-STITCH-PATTERN-CHART_W0QQitemZ180173627523QQihZ008QQcategoryZ34042QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItemI'm not going to mention how (in the interest of keeping this off Google, or someone bashing me for telling how to do it), but this method of the blank.gif is bypassable with 2 clicks of a mouse to have the image. It's not really a bit of work and in fact, is sometimes easier than the right click/save method (and gives better quality might I add). It's actually more work adding this part to it, than it is to copy it.Watermarking is about the best way I've seen (aside from embedding which is a whole other animal and a pita), and you can do it faint enough not to be intrusive, but to still keep your letters on there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candle-Lady Posted January 25, 2008 Share Posted January 25, 2008 I know how it is to have someone steal your hard work from your website.This candle maker is tracked on my website 75 times in the last year.Any new program I came up with she copied.Finally moved our website to a site that bans IP numbers and she still tried to get on using the internet archives.We filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint and they did nothing.Seems all you have to do is change a few words around and they get away with it.Guess it is true "what goes around comes around " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michi Posted January 25, 2008 Share Posted January 25, 2008 My HP printer software has watermarking capability.You might want to check yours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erinmfritz Posted January 25, 2008 Share Posted January 25, 2008 I'm not going to mention how (in the interest of keeping this off Google, or someone bashing me for telling how to do it), but this method of the blank.gif is bypassable with 2 clicks of a mouse to have the image. It's not really a bit of work and in fact, is sometimes easier than the right click/save method (and gives better quality might I add). It's actually more work adding this part to it, than it is to copy it.Watermarking is about the best way I've seen (aside from embedding which is a whole other animal and a pita), and you can do it faint enough not to be intrusive, but to still keep your letters on there.Is that the same with a transparent picture on top of the original image? That's interesting, where do people come up with this stuff? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissMary Posted January 25, 2008 Share Posted January 25, 2008 Yes, anytime a pic is displayed on a webpage, regardless of what's in front, it can be done in 2 steps. It's a sad reality, and the original function was never intended for that use, but of course, people always find ways to much things up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkymonkey66 Posted January 25, 2008 Author Share Posted January 25, 2008 My HP printer software has watermarking capability.You might want to check yours.I didn't even think to check my printer software. Thank you that was a good idea.I am going to look into the gimp website too. Thank you for the responses I appreciate it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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