Watermark Creator

• Download demo - 127 Kb
• Download source - 99.7 Kb

Introduction

I wanted to watermark a few sunset images taken by me, before posting it to internet. After searching for an hour or so, I couldn't find any freeware tool. All were shareware, means you have to buy, #$#$!@##!#@#@. I decided to make a tool on my own, many thanks to Joel Neubeck's article in CodeProject. Using his article, I just tried to create a proper user friendly GUI tool to mark images with copyright note, also optionally with your company logo.

You can call the tool Watermark Creator, Watermark tool or anything. I named it as MarkMyImage.

The above image is taken from the internet, copyright to respected owner.

Using the code

You can download the source code, and modify it according to your needs, though I feel you need not modify anything :-).

• Before running the application do not forget to run "MarkMyImage.reg". This will create the necessary keys into your registry (to store user preference).
• Form_Load takes values from the system registry and initializes the screen.
• You should now point your working folder to your image folder (input folder), where your images are located.
• You can preview all the images, and select the required ones (by default, all images be selected).
• By default, all output files will be generated as "[filename][suffix].ext", in the same folder. By default, the suffix is "_final".
• You can set a different output folder, this way the output file name(s) will remain same.
• Form_Closed saves all the current settings into the registry.

Class Watermark has two constructors, with or without the watermark image.

WaterMark(string WorkingDirectory, string Copyright, Image ImgWatermark);
WaterMark(string WorkingDirectory, string Copyright);

According to user choice (watermark image preference), we will create the WaterMark object by passing the necessary parameters...

if (chkWaterMarkImage.Checked == true)
    wm = new WaterMark(txtWorkingFolder.Text, 
                       txtCopyRight.Text,picWaterMark.Image);
else
    wm = new WaterMark(txtWorkingFolder.Text,txtCopyRight.Text);

Now, a simple execution loop for all the selected files.

for(int i=0;i<lstFileList.CheckedItems.Count;i++)
{
    srcPic = txtWorkingFolder.Text + 
          lstFileList.Items[i].ToString().Substring(
          lstFileList.Items[i].ToString().LastIndexOf("\\"));
    if (chkSameOutputFolder.Checked == true)
        dstPic = srcPic.Insert(srcPic.LastIndexOf("."),txtSuffix.Text);
    else
        dstPic = txtOutputFolder.Text + "\\" + 
                 srcPic.Substring(srcPic.LastIndexOf("\\") + 1);

    wm.MarkImage(srcPic,dstPic);
    progressBar1.Increment(1);
    statusBarPanel2.Text = "Proecessing Image " + 
      srcPic.Substring(lstFileList.Items[i].ToString().LastIndexOf("\\") + 1);
    Application.DoEvents();
}

Points of Interest

• I really wanted to put jazzzzyy text in images, something like MS® Word Art. Now, it is very well possible after a few modifications in the source code. I will try to modify the source (hope I'll get the time) so that positions of "Copyright notice" and "logo" are configurable.
• This example also shows a simple use of the PropertyGrid control.
• I found a very nice logic to set the default values of the PropertyGrid control. It uses PropertyInfo of System.Reflection. Take a look at the following block of code:
  C#

  PropertyInfo[] props = this.GetType().GetProperties();
  for (int i=0; i<props.Length; i++)
  {
      object[] attrs = 
        props[i].GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DefaultValueAttribute),false);
      if (attrs.Length > 0)
      {
          DefaultValueAttribute attr = (DefaultValueAttribute)attrs[0];
          props[i].SetValue(this,attr.Value,null);
      }
  }

• get all the properties props.
• get the custom attribute of each property attrs.
• get DefaultValueAttribute.
• set property value.

History

• 21 June 2005, 1.0 - Tip release of MarkMyImage.
  • Not properly tested, please let me know if you face any error/bug.
  • Copyright notice/watermark notice and watermark logo positions are configurable.
  • Drawback 1, currently the tool supports only JPEG (*.jpg, *.jpeg) and bitmap (*.bmp) images.
• 15 June 2005, first release of MarkMyImage.
  • Drawback 1, copyright notice/watermark notice and watermark logo positions are hard-coded, hence not configurable.
  • Drawback 2, currently the tool supports only JPEG (*.jpg, *.jpeg) and bitmap (*.bmp) images.