# How-To Track Your Images If Being Used On and Offline



## Anonymous (Aug 14, 2012)

Hello members,

This thread was in response to a member or more talking about watermarking their images and my reply was that in most cases the watermarks can be easily removed. I was asked to see if I could remove a watermark from an image... I believe there were at least 3 replies to me removing watermarks.. and so I did.

*WARNING: THE IMAGES THAT HAVE BEEN ALTERED AND THE ORIGINALS ARE THE COPYRIGHT(S) OF THEIR RESPECTED OWNERS. DO NOT USE THESE IMAGES AT ALL IF YOU DON'T HAVE PERMISSION TO DO SO. THE IMAGES ARE ONLY USED FOR DEMONSTRATION PURPOSES. THAT'S ALL. ALSO, I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY IN THE USE OF MISUSE OF THESE IMAGES AND AM IN NO WAY LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES THAT MAY ARISE FROM THE USE OF THESE IMAGES. FURTHERMORE, THESE IMAGES CAN AND WILL BE DELETED ONCE REQUESTED BY THE MODERATOR(S) AND (OR) THE RIGHTFUL OWNERS OF THEM.*

The purpose of this thread is to inform members that their hard earned work of processing precious metals and taking pictures of them to upload here to show members should not be in vain. If your images mean that much to you, do whatever it takes to protect them to the best of your ability. Don't just upload images and think that everyone is going to respect your wishes of not using them when you ask. Some people are determined to steal from you no matter what, and you need to be prepared.

Below are 3 sets of watermarked images to the left, and to the right are the same images after I removed the watermarks. Again, the point was, and, is to show the members how easily it is to have your hard work (images) stolen from you, and without the correct watermarks and tracking of those images, you'll never know, and if you do find out, it could be too late as the damage has already been in effect for some time.

The first set below was the easiest of them all. It only took *less than 15 minutes* to do.







The second set below took a few minutes longer, due to the ball bearings and I wanted it to look like all the bearings were fully round and not chopped up and such. Still, I did this one in *approximately 20 - 25 minutes*.






The third set below took the longest, and the reason is because I left in the ruler. If I took out the ruler on this one I could have removed the watermark in about 30 minutes. I believe this one took an hour or so as to detail all the pins and the FLEX name, and I had to redo some of the numbers that are on the chips and on the ruler (the no# 9. I forgot all about no# 14). But all in all, I did it.






When I opened up my Paint Shop Pro and my Photoshop, they both use the same watermarking service for images and it's called Digimarc. You can find them at: http://www.digimarc.com/. If your images are really that important to you (mine are too), then it wouldn't be a bad idea to at least check out the website or open up your image program and look for "watermark" under the menu list or do a search in the "Help" section.

*Note:* I am in no way affiliated nor am I compensated in any way what-so-ever with informing any member about Digimarc. This is just a website I think all members that want to protect their images should check out. I need to get a subscription myself because I've seen some of my images on the Internet, but they're just images of memorial products I sell.

*Another Note: DO NOT* ask me to remove any watermarks at all. If you want watermarks removed from images, then I'm thinking right now that the image(s) aren't yours anyway... not unless they are watermarked with *YOUR* website/info on them.

*Ending Note:* Nothing is 100% guaranteed nor 100% foolproof. With that said, do your research and if you have any image programs, just open them up and see if they have watermark capabilities. If they do, I'm confident it's what I mentioned above.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

[Update] I forgot to mention that this subject started at the thread below. Loo at the beauty that was created in the original post.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=15155


----------



## goldsilverpro (Aug 14, 2012)

Please reduce the size of those images so that horizontal scrolling isn't necessary.

Thank you.


----------



## Geo (Aug 14, 2012)

it fits fine in Chrome. no scrolling needed.


----------



## Anonymous (Aug 14, 2012)

goldsilverpro said:


> Please reduce the size of those images so that horizontal scrolling isn't necessary.
> 
> Thank you.


Is it all of them or the 2nd one? On both of my monitors they all fit fine. No left-right scrolling at all. I'll do as you ask, but I wanted to keep them at most to the max allowed size here so the details could show better. 

Kevin

[Update] I reduced the 2nd image to 1000pix wide. Is it still too wide or do all of them need resizing? That's odd though, I've always used the max allowed on this site (bigger than what I uploaded today) and haven't had any complaints on the sizes. This time I've been using less than the max size for images. I know for a fact that if the image is too big, the system will not upload it and it will inform you that the image is too big. It never did it to any of the 3 images I uploaded today.

I think you have a monitor that is between 19" - 21" at most that you're looking at this from. I may be incorrect, but mine is a 23" and it's perfect. As a matter of fact, not a single image on this site I ever had to scroll left-right, all because the forum script is setup to not allow images of certain sizes to even be uploaded.


----------



## mjgraham (Aug 14, 2012)

Not bad, not knowing I would have fell for it, the only thing that cought me right off was on the second photo of the bearings the refelection on the right side. But your right I have used Photoshop for many years and in this day and age it is nearly impossible to trust some stuff, with some time anything can be done. I am by no means that good with it..


----------



## Anonymous (Aug 14, 2012)

mjgraham said:


> Not bad, not knowing I would have fell for it, the only thing that cought me right off was on the second photo of the bearings the refelection on the right side. But your right I have used Photoshop for many years and in this day and age it is nearly impossible to trust some stuff, with some time anything can be done. I am by no means that good with it..


None of this was meant to pass laboratory testing. Just wanted it to pass the human eye. And they do look good to me for approximately 2 hours of watermark removing from a total of 3 images.

I do however see what you mean about the right side of the second image. I did these images in 2 or 3 sweeps, meaning, I did some, went to sleep, woke up and did the rest, along with my business that I run. It was fun, but mainly to show how easily removing watermarks can be done.


Kevin


----------



## mjgraham (Aug 14, 2012)

Well like I said, if I hadn't known I wouldn't have known. I would have just thought the ruler and pins on the last one might have been JPEG artifacts easily enough, sleep what is that..


----------



## Harold_V (Aug 15, 2012)

testerman said:


> I wanted to keep them at most to the max allowed size here so the details could show better.


In such a case, place pictures one on top of the other instead of side by side. You get the large results without causing readers to scroll sideways. 

You have provided the information required to have readers understand that a crook has means of overcoming pretty much any safeguards one can use. Thanks for taking the time to show your work. 

Harold


----------



## Anonymous (Aug 15, 2012)

Harold_V said:


> testerman said:
> 
> 
> > I wanted to keep them at most to the max allowed size here so the details could show better.
> ...


That there makes perfect sense. I never thought of doing them that way. Thanks for the suggestion/recommendation Harold. I'll do it that way the next time, or even redo these here.

Kevin


----------



## Irons2 (Aug 15, 2012)

Image Metadata

Photographs

Metadata may be written into a digital photo file that will identify who owns it, copyright & contact information, what camera created the file, along with exposure information and descriptive information such as keywords about the photo, making the file searchable on the computer and/or the Internet. Some metadata is written by the camera and some is input by the photographer and/or software after downloading to a computer. However, not all digital cameras enable you to edit metadata;[8] this functionality has been available on most Nikon DSLRs since the Nikon D3 and on most new Canon cameras since the Canon EOS 7D.

Photographic Metadata Standards are governed by organizations that develop the following standards. They include, but are not limited to:

IPTC Information Interchange Model IIM (International Press Telecommunications Council),
IPTC Core Schema for XMP
XMP – Extensible Metadata Platform (an ISO standard)
Exif – Exchangeable image file format, Maintained by CIPA (Camera & Imaging Products Association) and published by JEITA (Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association)
Dublin Core (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative – DCMI)
PLUS (Picture Licensing Universal System).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata#Photographs


----------



## samuel-a (Aug 15, 2012)

Hi testerman 


Thank you for making this post. I'll copy here your response in the other thread:



> Not hard at all. What a person can do is a color replacer and (or) a clone copy of part of an image and clone it in the area you want it to be in. I'll do the image just to show you. Now remember, it may be different, but it's still YOUR image.
> 
> The best way to put an invisible watermark on your images is to simply zoom in to the max size, then place some 1x1 pixel images, with a letter or such in each one, then combine them in the grids where the original part of the image was at. In other words, you can write out anything you want and it'll be right in everyone's face without them knowing it. Since you can hide a pixel anywhere in any image, it'll be humanly impossible to find it, and especially if you don't know what to look for.
> 
> ...



To be honest, i undestand less then half from what you explain about how to perform these procedures. But still very much appreciate the effort.

The one that interest me the most is this:


> The best way to put an invisible watermark on your images is to simply zoom in to the max size, then place some 1x1 pixel images, with a letter or such in each one, then combine them in the grids where the original part of the image was at. In other words, you can write out anything you want and it'll be right in everyone's face without them knowing it. Since you can hide a pixel anywhere in any image, it'll be humanly impossible to find it, and especially if you don't know what to look for.



I can't understand how it is done...  


By the way, in the second picture these are not ball bearings, these are fine silver shot i made and placed in an SS cup before entering the furnace for casting.


----------



## goldenchild (Aug 15, 2012)

testerman said:


> *Ending Note:* Nothing is 100% guaranteed nor 100% foolproof.



This pretty much sums it all up. Unfortunately if someone wants something and is willing to put in enough time and effort they will eventually get it. There are people in the world that have all the time in the world to sit around doing stuff like this.


----------



## samuel-a (Aug 15, 2012)

goldenchild said:


> This pretty much sums it all up. Unfortunately if someone wants something and is willing to put in enough time and effort they will eventually get it. There are people in the world that have all the time in the world to sit around doing stuff like this.



Yup... unfortunately you are right Mario.

Too bad they do not invest that time & effort to actually create something of their own.


----------



## Irons2 (Aug 15, 2012)

Stegnography:

http://seminarprojects.com/Thread-steganography-full-report--8121?page=3

Hiding messages inside Digital Media.

Steganography includes a vast array of techniques for hiding messages in a variety of media. Among these methods are invisible inks, microdots, digital signatures, covert channels and spread-spectrum communications. Today, thanks to modern technology, steganography is used on text, images, sound, signals, and more. The advantage of steganography is that it can be used to secretly transmit messages without the fact of the transmission being discovered. Often, using encryption might identify the sender or receiver as somebody with something to hide. For example, that picture of your cat could conceal the plans for your company's latest technical innovation.
However, steganography has a number of disadvantages as well. Unlike encryption, it generally requires a lot of overhead to hide a relatively few bits of information. However, there are ways around this. Also, once a steganographic system is discovered, it is rendered useless. This problem, too, can be overcome if the hidden data depends on some sort of key for its insertion and extraction.
In fact, it is common practice to encrypt the hidden message before placing it in the cover message. However, it should be noted that the hidden message does not need to be encrypted to qualify as steganography. The message itself can be in plain English and still be a hidden message. However, most steganographers like the extra layer of protection that encryption provides. If your hidden message is found, and then at least make it as protected as possible.


----------



## Geo (Aug 15, 2012)

cant you map an image, lay it on a grid and put a microscopic message in an inconspicuous spot so that if the image was stolen you can identify it as yours to the authorities?if it was on a grid, you could say "the message is at R-90" being alphabetical and numeral or any fraction needed to pinpoint it.


----------



## Anonymous (Aug 15, 2012)

Geo said:


> cant you map an image, lay it on a grid and put a microscopic message in an inconspicuous spot so that if the image was stolen you can identify it as yours to the authorities?if it was on a grid, you could say "the message is at R-90" being alphabetical and numeral or any fraction needed to pinpoint it.


Yes.. Exactly... but with one exception. If a person changes the image size, the grid location wouldn't be any good because the image won't be there. On the other hand, if the image size is altered, all you would need to do is resize it back to its original size and your grid location for the watermark will be in its location.

Kevin


----------



## Anonymous (Aug 15, 2012)

samuel-a said:


> By the way, in the second picture these are not ball bearings, these are fine silver shot i made and placed in an SS cup before entering the furnace for casting.


I don't know why my brain cells didn't pick up on that. Of course... silver shots.  

Kevin


----------



## jimdoc (Aug 15, 2012)

Just take pictures with your face in it, how would they explain that?

Jim


----------



## Anonymous (Aug 15, 2012)

jimdoc said:


> Just take pictures with your face in it, how would they explain that?
> 
> Jim


Yeah... :lol: Now that's a good one. It's pretty hard to explain that one.

One good tip that will help make your images useless to image thieves, and that is to use a colorful image (preferably a "gradient color), or colorful text or a combination of both on your image. A gradient text or image is when one color changes to another color from one end of the image to the other. Another way to look at it is like this. You can take a square image and from the left side of the image it can be green, but as you move to the right of the image, it fades away the green and starts changing into another color all the way to the other end of the square.

I'll put up some small samples of watermarks that will be hard to remove.

Kevin


----------

