Thursday, March 25, 2010

Batch Photo Watermarking with Gimp Free Photo Editing Software

It's finally here--batch watermarking with Gimp!  I guess they released it back in January, it just took me this long to find it :)  Before you read this tutorial, you'll need to check out how to install Python plug-ins in Gimp.
Did you install the plug-in?  Good!  Let's start!

Step 1) Copy the photos you want to watermark and put them in their own folder.  Copy the photos so that if you mess up, you still have the original, and you have an un-watermarked copy for yourself.  Put them in their own folder so Gimp can distinguish which photos are to be edited.

Step 2) Open Gimp (duh!)

Step 3) Go to tools>batchwork>watermark.  
 From here you can choose either "bump map" or "difference map".  To be honest, I have no clue what either means but this is what they look like:
The first is bump map, the second is difference map.  As you can see, bump map gives the text a little of a bubble feel.  It actually bumps out parts of your photo to make the words.  The difference map just overlays the words on your photo.

Step 4) If you choose "difference map":  it's super easy--
 a) In both the input and output directory you'll want to go down to "other" and find your folder of pictures to be watermarked.
b) You'll need to change the opacity because the default of 5 is not enough.  After playing around, I liked 35.  You may like something different.  You'll also choose your font and put in your text.  Then hit "ok" and watch how fast you are watermarking your photos!
c) When it's done, you'll get this little warning screen.  Don't worry, it says "warning" but if you look close, it actually says that it's complete.  You'll get an error message if your watermarking didn't work.  Find your folder again and check out your photos!

Step 4) If you choose "bump map":  a little more confusing--
a) Just like the first one, go down to "other" and find your folder.  You'll also select your font and enter your text.
 b) There are more options in this one.  I fooled around with them and really didn't get a good grasp of what they do.  You'll probably have to play to find out what you like.
I'll give you a few hints: when I dropped the depth to 0 the watermark really stood out!
When I brought the water level down to 0 the watermark barely showed up.  In fact, you can only really see it on the top dog's chest.
  The rest of the settings, I didn't notice much of a difference when I changed them.  You can play...

There you have it--batch watermarking with Gimp!
I'm personally not thrilled with the bump map option.  I like the difference map option much better.
I'm also not too thrilled that the text repeats and it's in two spots on the photo.
You're limited to just text but I can live with that.
Hey, if you're a mom with a camera and a blog, and you don't want to go through and individually watermark all your photos, this Gimp plug-in will do just fine!




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9 comments:

Tina said...

Thanks for taking the time to put together a post like this.

The reason I ask how you bring your photos into your blog is because I use Flickr and amazingly the quality of the picture looks better than when you put it straight through Blogger. You might want to check it out.

Have a Blessed Day & thanks again for the awesome tutorial.

Mrs. HH said...

Hi there,
I am really grateful for your posting about the python plugins - best tutorial I have read on the topic. But I, like you, am not really thrilled about the 2 line repeating text watermark look. If you are just looking to watermark for your blog, have you tried Windows Live Writer for writing blog posts with pictures (it's free, too)? When you add a picture, you can set up a watermark, and borders like shadow or rounded corners. Then you can set those settings to 'use as default', and it will apply them to every picture in every post from then on. The watermark settings are limited to location, font, and size, but for me, it works great. If I need a 'true' watermark on a saved file, though, I'll definitely use GIMP!

Ashley said...

Oh, good! You posted this while I was on vacation last week, so I'm glad I caught it! Thanks for taking the time and posting it!

Ashley said...

By the way...look at your adorable doggies!!!! So cute. Was this your female dog that died?

MyFiveMinutes! said...

Thank you for taking the time to work all this out and post it! would have taken me days. really appreciate your work!

Adam said...

You are awesome. This saved me so much time. *thumbup*

B Sunil said...

Really glad to have such a stepwise guide which saved my precious time! yesterday i wasted at least 1 hour trying searching and installing the plugin but in vain. it's only your blog, that ha helped me out to resolve my problems. Thanks !

Unknown said...

I know this entry was from last year, but I thought I'd try...

When I try to click on the Batchwork.py, it's just code in a text document. Did this change since you wrote your tutorial?

Thanks,

Elizabeth

Jamie H said...

Elizabeth, I don't think it's changed. But I haven't done it in so long I don't honestly remember. So sorry!

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