Watermark is a problem always!

I can see a blacked out space in the place of watermark! my water mark is 150x150 pixels and the same size of black space is visible in the uploaded images. how to resolve it? please help.

how did you image?

and never happens to try to make the image transparent while creating / recording.

After that your image will have no problem

I created a png file and that doesnt work. Gif is working.

What is the transparency of first image means? What is the optimum value?

I find the solution myself!

The supported watermark formats are GIF and PNG-8. Both of the format gives you a low quality image and the edges of the watermark would not be good to see. If the watermark text is small, you can't even read it.

The best quality image is PNG-24 and unfortunately not supported!

Yeah, the watermark feature in Dolphin 7.0 is pitiful, and I don't recommend even using it until they get it better off.

and still sucks.

Why in this day in age can't this work properly? Transparent PNG files still show up BLACK...

The problem is not so much the watermark module but the GD library used for adding the watermark. If you want better quality you'll need to install something like ImageMagick but this requires a seperate install for the ImageMagick PHP extensions. Once that is installed you still need a mod that uses the ImageMagick libraries, rather than the GD libraries.

The reason why you see a black block is because of different formats and colors for the (transparent) background. I've been playing around with this for a while in an attempt to create an animated GIF upload module but run in to issues with some of the GIFS, using the GD library. Others work fine, even afer resizing the image, so it can be used as an avatar. But there are some that drive me mad.

To get back to the subject; making ImageMagick a requirement for installing Dolphin will most likely scare a lot of people of, that is if your hosting provider will allow you to install it. Never the less, I wouldn't mind if it was a prerequisite for running Dolphin.

They should have an option of what image library you want to use if there are apparent limitations with the GD libs...

 Because this was brought back up.

The best setting is at 50%.

it would be nice  to have the ability to select perhaps: NetPBM, ImageMagick, GD or GraphicsMagick. They are all pretty commonly available.

 OK, stupid question coming, in the admin section there is the option to "not" use GD as the processor.

What does this do?

Enable GD Library For Image Processing:

If unchecked, dolphin will use imagemagick instead if it's installed.

Thanks Deano,

So is that what to do to make this work?

To get back to the subject; making ImageMagick a requirement for installing Dolphin will most likely scare a lot of people of, that is if your hosting provider will allow you to install it. Never the less, I wouldn't mind if it was a prerequisite for running Dolphin.

Don't assume that.

I have not tested everything as i have always run with GD on.

And it would also depend on how and what functions within ImageMagick that dolphin is using.

So just switching to ImageMagick is not a guaranteed fix.

doesn't work with it unchecked.

Thanks Deano, thumbs up.

Here is an easy solution. Only tested on 7.0.9

1) Just import a watermark.png into dolphin. It gets converted (wrong) and uploaded to /media/images/profile/

2) Then overwrite the just uploaded one by your original one. Use ftp or ssh etc.

Works fine for me, no black background.

 You should not have to create the "right" one, any picture should do.

Besides the issue with the background is not having a flexible size of the watermark an issue. In some cases the watermark is too small and In some cases it's too big. For example the watermark in the picture uploaded by newton27 is too small.

For my own site I have changed the behaviour of the watermark to be always 1/3 of the original image, this way the watermark is clearly displayed on every picture, no matter what size.

 If that is the case, then please share, make it a module or something.

The choices in the market, are slim.

I've noticed the size problems too... what did you do to change it from fixed, to a ratio/percent?

I have isolated the functions needed for such a module, just not sure when I get around building it. The next mod I'm going to release will be a social geo locator module. It will make the wordmap module interactive and can update forms with the correct country and city information. Am still thinking about adding an automatic language updater, but not sure if this is what people want (probably going to be an option).

So, I have plenty to do and actually, If I keep creating modules I soon need someone to build my site for me

 I suspect it's something in the /inc/classes/BxDolImageResize.php around:

        $watermarkX = ($size[0] - $wtrSize[0]) / 2;

        $watermarkY = $size[1] - $wtrSize[1];

        $copyResult = imagecopy( $dst_im, $src_im, 0, 0, 0, 0, $size[0], $size[1]);

        if (!$copyResult)

            return IMAGE_ERROR_GD_MERGE_ERROR;

        imagealphablending($wtr_im, false);

        imagesavealpha($wtr_im, true);

        if (IMAGE_TYPE_PNG == $wtrSize[2] && imageistruecolor($wtr_im))

            $mergeResult = imagecopy  ( $dst_im, $wtr_im, $watermarkX, $watermarkY, 0, 0, $wtrSize[0], $wtrSize[1]);

        else

            $mergeResult = imagecopymerge  ( $dst_im, $wtr_im, $watermarkX, $watermarkY, 0, 0, $wtrSize[0], $wtrSize[1], $wtrTransparency );

yeah???

 Thanks!! That did the trick. Just need to figure out the variables to use percent rather than fixed sizes for the merge.

I opened a new topic (I dear you)for people to upload the watermark images they have issues with. My modified watermark hack solves most issues and as a test I would like to use the images you have issues with. The results will be uploaded to that topic

If everything works fine, I'll distribute it as an extra with my geo locator module, that will be on sale later today?

I'm just curious how to change the sizing from fixed to a % of the image. If a user uploads a small file, it takes up most of the image and looks terrible, and also the whole watermark doen't even fit...

Does your code hack change from fixed to %?

In my (current) code everything is calculated and the watermark is always centered and has a width which is 1/3 of the picture you're uploading.

excellent! ^_^

I need to do some more testing but expect that my code in the very near future also will support animated gifs. With that I ran in to a transparent background issue that I had to overcome for the current watermark (the black, instead of transparent) background.

Anyway, if you have a watermark and image you would like to see as an example... please upload it to the forum subject I opened. It is a good test for me as well. All my tests go wel, but maybe I'm lucky with the pictures used and yours come out completly wrong. Either way I'll post the results

my watermark is my site name. I'm sure it works with your customization, but I'd rather not send it ;) Looking forward to testing it out when you're done.

OK, I have created a demo site demo.kletsradio.com where you can test the watermark. (unfortunately not the upload of the watermark image). Any issues, please let me know!

For those interested, I'm giving it away for free with my geo locator module, which you can also see at work on the demo site.

username: Demo

password: Demo123

Do you also intend to have a separate module for this for those who don't want the geo locator module?

I do intend to release it as a separate module but I first have to solve the last issue I have with animated gifs. To me this has currently no priority since I'm trying to set my own site live (all modules and hacks I have released are born as a personal need for my site).

This means it might take a few months before releasing such a module.

But have you checked the geo locator module? It might surprise you

Yes, the geo locator module is nice.  However, we have had members to feel uncomfortable with any location tracking type thing.  Our site policy forbids anyone to place on their pages anything that would indicate another member's location.  They can put up visitor maps that trace back to a country but not anything more.

 This module shows the map taking your location as the centre while showing profiles and groups in your area. It does not show your location to others. It also fills forms with the information it gets, but again, doesn't reveal your location to others!

The watermark hack is not included in the geo locator module, but comes as a seperate file. This means you don't have to install the geo locator module to use the watermark hack. Therefore you could see it differently, you buy the watermark hack and get a geo locator module for free

I will also make the promise now, that everyone who buys the geo locator module (or watermark hack) before I release the watermark module, will get $5 discount on the watermark module.

"This module shows the map taking your location as the centre while showing profiles and groups in your area."

While I know we are getting off topic; and I did go to the module page, what does "area" mean.  If I had a module installed on my website that would let someone know of others that are near them, and I have seen geo-location info that listed cities dang close, that could be problematic.  Can that be turned off?  I will revisit the module's page to read through it again.

I can see much value in your module for a dating site or for sites which host online physical groups where knowing the location of groups could be helpful.

Yes, we're getting off topic and area means what can be displayed on the map, depending on the zoom you specify.

All settings are done through the world map administration (except for enabling/disabling (parts of) the module).

A must have for datingsites, etc but not just that. People register sooner for a site when they see something they feel related to, your own area for example.

But I believe buying the package for the watermark hack is als worth it. I like people to be able to use it, it just isn't a full module yet and therefore I don't want to sell it as so. Combining the two in one package for a fair price of $20 seems reasonable to me (especially with a $5 discount for when the module will be released).

The hack makes a watermark with the size that is 1/3 of the original picture, places it in the centre of the uploaded photo, using the transparency you set. No black backgrounds, etc. just clean pictures (of course depending of the quality of the image used!).

 I just purchased... 

I need that!! well both!

Thanks

How does the watermarking work?  Is this a site wide thing or can individuals decide if they want to watermark an image?  I am thinking that photographers and artist may want to protect their images; especially if they are selling them, while others may not; some members upload images that don't belong to them so watermarking is not an issue there.  What about the original image link, does that get watermarked as well?  I am wondering if a hack that allows each member to disable the original link is something that should be in place?

Hi GG,

Watermarking is a site wide action. You enable watermarking in the back office and then the watermark is placed on all images.

This is not something you can enable per person but the option to individual watermark an image is something I'm willing to explore further for when I release my watermark module.

For now, the watermark is improved, resized and centred with working transparency and without the blacked out blocks. So much better than it was!

 Hi Denre, 

If you are going to release this as a separate module, I think a very good additon would be the ability to simply add text to an image or even just an option to use site <domain> and not necessarily an image. This way, you can then add another feature which would give the administrator for example, if they want to have their site/url on every image they can just type it in (or enable domain tag. But also, if the administrator wants to allow it, have an option to add the profilename too. So when user's upload their images, they could have their own watermark with the url of their profile on each one...

Just a thought... I would actually prefer to simply have text added as a watermark... 

Thanks for the suggestion crack_foo, I certainly will see if I can implement it!