Tech: Watermark?

Subject: Tech: Watermark?
From: John Hardly
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 04:36 PM

Well, I've accidentally done it before. I have Photoshop, and I have Irfanview and I have two other programs that deal with image processing. I have "Photoshop For Dummies" and yet...

...I can't figure out how to make a photo into a "watermark".

Anyone?

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: s&r
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 05:10 PM

You can do it in Word fairly easily - follow the help menu.

Stu

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 05:13 PM

It depends on what you mean.

Do you mean a faint, outline print that will look a bit like a watermark when overprinted, or a "watermark" for insertion into another digital file? Or, come to that, a digital file suitable for use as a real watermark in paper manufacture? All rather different things...

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: John Hardly
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 05:33 PM

Thanks for the Word tip -- I can't make that work. --even looked up "watermark" and "images" in Word for Dummies and it doesn't have it there.

Yeah, I'm trying to make a photo into a faint backgroud so I can put copy over it. As I said, I've done it by accident in the past (can't remember what program I used) so I know my computer can do it.

I'm assuming it was a program that I've since uninstalled, thinking that surely photoshop 7 could do anything it could.

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 06:46 PM

There will be all sorts of plugins that will do that, but a fairly easy way in PS7 is to make the background image into a layer, lower the opacity in "layer style-blending options", then flatten the image again. There are lots of other ways of getting equivalent results, and you might try the emboss or notepaper filter -among other possibilities- to simplify the image before lightening it.

Or you could just play with the brightness/contrast sliders, which is probably the quickest way.

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 07:07 PM

Word has two ways of doing it (sort of). If you don't find what you want under "watermark" you might try looking at "Format|Theme."

From past experience (mainly with PostScript tricks), anything you put in a header in Word will print before the rest of the page, so text on the main page will overprint what's in the header, if you set margins appropriately. The main "trick" is to use a "-" (minus) in front of the top margin setting, which doesn't make it start off the page, but makes it an "absolute" rather than "relative to text" measure so that the overprinting will happen instead of just pushing the text to the next page when your header is full page size. (Note: this isn't a "recommended practice" in recent Word versions. I figure they just forgot to mention it.)

My Photoshop Elements main reference, Photoshop Elements for Digital Photographers, Scott Kelby, New Riders - highly recommended, only mentions "lineart" sorts of watermarking of prints. Key there is to apply "Effects|Clear Emboss" from the effects pallette to the watermark layer to give a "raised text effect and make the layer transparent." The big Photoshop versions should have something similar.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 08:11 PM

Years ago at work I had a friend who was a Postscript wiz who gave me a short PS prog that allowed one to insert text in Word as a watermark under the text eg a faint 'Draft' diagonally across the page. I no longer have that.

You need to have Postscript drivers for your printer though.

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 11:22 PM

Foolestroupe -

You have to have a PostScript printer for it to work.

There are quite a few things you can do with a PostScript driver on your machine, even if you don't have a PostScript capable printer - but you can't directly print PostScript without a !PS RIP, in software or integral to the printer.

Most recent model laser printers will accept PostScript, but you do need to check individual models; and it's sometimes hard to get the makers to admit it even when they do. (At my last lookup, QMS laser printers all preferred PostScript input.)

You can get "software RIP" (Raster Image Processor) programs, but they're generally in the 0.5 - 0.8 K$ range, so they're impractical for most of us.

Inkjet printers with integral PostScript started at about $4K (US) last time I looked; but I expect them to hit the market at reasonable prices any day now... (holding my breath and turning blue).

For the "watermark," in Word on a PostScript printer, you just put the watermark script in the header, in a "{print \p}" field, set top margin negative in Page Setup, script whatever you want to be in the watermark and "0.98 setgray" or so ahead of it in the script. The header will print first, pale gray, and text in the document will overprint it.

You should be able to put a graphic (Insert Picture) of the watermark you want in the header, with the same "negative top margin" and get the same effect on any printer. The problem would be producing a picture that's "washed out" enough for the overprinted text to be legible. To locate the watermark where you want it, the graphic would need to be near "page size." I may have to experiment.

The "official" ways in recent Word use the "Format|Themes" and "Insert Watermark" commands, but instructions are a bit vague, and I haven't messed with them.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 01:25 AM

I have confirmed that you can put an image (photo) in the Header for a Word document and with proper setup it will print first and will be overprinted by text you type later in the body of the document.

My setup:

1. Image "Honthorst_AYoungWomanPlayingAViolaDaGamba.jpg" (happens to be a favorite of mine). Resized to 7.5 x 9.7 inches approximately. Size should not be particularly critical, because when you insert a picture into Word it usually will resize automatically to fit to the page margins.

2. In Photoshop Elements 2, Enhance|Adjust Brightness/Contrast|Brightness and Contrast. I pulled the contrast slider back to about
-60, and kicked brightness back up a bit to attempt to "lighten" the image so that text would show on top of it. This is a rather "dark" image, and a different one would probably look better; but she has a nice smile.

3. Open Word and on Page Setup I set:
Top Margin -1.0
Left, Right, and Bottom Margins 1.0.

4. Select View|Headers and Footers, and make sure you're in the header.

5. Go to the top toolbar and select Insert|Picture|From File. If the inserted picture is about the right size, you can just insert spaces at the top to run it down to the center of the page.

6. Close the Header/Footer toolbar. With the Top Margin set "negative" the image should flow down onto the body of the page, and you can type directly over it.

Picture settings were only crudely adjusted, since this was just a "proof of concept" thing. There are better ways in Photoshop (any version) to get a better low density image. Text legibility for this test was not too good, and I'd suggest using "light colored" images for better results.

This will, of course, give the same "watermark" on all pages unless you Insert|Break|NextPage to create a new document section - which can have a different header. (Be sure to turn off the "same as previous" link before you insert the new pic for the next section. The link defaults to "on" when you first open the View|Headers and Footers in a new section.)

The "Trace" and "Watermark" methods documented in Word Help quite probably will do more for you than this "brute force" method, but I haven't figured them out yet either.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: Snuffy
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 07:14 PM

The way recommended in Word 2003 is Format, Background, Printed Watermark, which brings up a dialogue box where you can set all your variables.

I haven't worked out how to change to a different watermaerk yet, but I'll give J-i-K's suggestion a go.

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 07:29 PM

Snuffy -

The "words are the same but the music doesn't play" for my look at Watermarks in a couple of Word versions. My newest version is the one that says "when this doesn't work, see Format|Themes, but I haven't figured that one out either.

It seems to be very common in Word (and Mickey stuff in general) for the "no-Help" authors to assume that you're trying to do what they're telling you how to do; but they often don't mention exactly when/where/why you should want to do it. You often end up doing something else by accident.

I don't find anything that gives a useful definition of what Microsoft means by "watermark." It may be something entirely different from what's needed here. I know several usages for the term, and I can't even tell which one they're talking about.

Sure, I can use it - but what is it, and when/why should I want to? They don't say.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: Snuffy
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 07:38 PM

I know just what you mean. I can't get a different watermark on Page 2, and i can't follow your suggestion to turn off the "same as previous" link before you insert the new pic for the next section, because I can't find anything like that.

I think I've created a new section and applied it "from this point forward", but the watermark goes backwards to the beginning too, overwriting the previous one.

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 07:44 PM

JiK

Work used a QMS laser.

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: John Hardly
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 07:47 PM

hmmm.

I typed out a very long thank you earlier today, and now I see that it didn't post.

Well, here's the same sentiment (only shorter this time)....

Thanks for the information -- you all went above and beyond the call of duty. Yer a buncha menches.

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 01:45 AM

When you open "View|Header and Footer" a toolbar should pop up.
1. At the right end it will say "Close"
2. Next left of that will be a "page" with a bar at the top and a right pointing arrow at the bottom. This one goes to the "next header/footer."
3. Next left of that will be a "page" with a bar at the top and a left pointing arrow at the bottom. This one goes to the "previous header/footer"
4. Next left of that is a "page" with bars top and bottom. This toggles between header and footer.

5. Next left of that is a "two pages with a dashed arrow going from the one on the right to the one on the left." If you hover over it (if you have "tips" turned on) it will say "Same as Previous." THIS IS THE ONE YOU WANT.

It will be "grayed out" while you're in the first section.

When you Insert|Break|Next Page, the status bar should show that you're in "Section 2." If you open the View|Header and Footer, the toolbar will have the "Same as Previous" Icon "lit up" to indicate a "depressed button." Click it once to turn it off, and when you insert the header for the second section the header in the first section should remain unchanged.

(It should work quite simply when you're putting in new sections, but can be a real p.i.a. if you need to delete a section that comes between two other sections with different headers. That's in the advanced class.)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: treewind
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 06:58 AM

John in K:
Inkjet printers with integral PostScript started at about $4K (US) last time I looked

I bought a colour laser for less than that last year. Single pass printing (i.e. fast) and duplexer too.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 08:51 AM

I'd be curious to know whether your color laser comes equipped for PostScript printing; and if so, whether it's true PostScript or "emulated !PS."

Color laser printers have been dropping in price at a rather spectacular rate during the last couple of years. At present the best I've heard of are 4-color, and although the color is pretty good it's not quite up to that of good 4-color inkjets. Even "microground" toner still has a visible grain on the paper, which isn't a problem for most stuff but could be a little less than you'd want for something critical.

I'd expect print fading to be less for a laser than for many popular inkjets, but haven't seen any confirmation of that; and fade resistant inks are becoming more available.

I've seen a few color lasers advertised that are almost as cheap as typical ink jets were a couple of years ago. I haven't seen reliable reports on print quality or per page costs for the cheaper ones. The ones I looked at some time ago were a bit $$cary when you looked at replacing 4 toner cartridges at $60 or more each, but probably the actual printing cost would be comparable - maybe less - than for inkjet.

Some of the newer low cost color inkjets also appear to use somewhat smaller toner cartridges, so I'd expect a bit lower per cartridge prices, but with correspondingly fewer pages per cartridge.

A likely reason for the sparse availability of PostScript in inkjets is that nearly all inkjet printers are color printers, and would be expected to see heavy use of graphics. PostScript can be incredibly slow when rendering pages with significant amounts of graphic content. Useful !PS handling also requires large amounts of memory in the printer - at least compared to other "printer languages," and the average home/small office user probably doesn't have a real need for the !PS anyway and wouldn't know what to use it for.

You can get a "software RIP" for almost any printer, that will let you print directly from PostScript scripts, but the last one I got, several years ago, (from the big name, Birmy) was $650 - for a $300 printer. The RIP software may be a bit cheaper now. The printers certainly are. But I haven't looked at software RIP programs recently.

It works better if the RIP is built into the printer, but many "printers with built in !PS" actually only "emulate" true PostScript printing by doing the RIP in the driver, and sending some other language to the printer. That works for some things, but it prevents you from doing a few things that only real PostScript can do.

And so far as I know, you still can't get a color inkjet printer that's PostScript capable at anything approaching a "consumer price" - in the home or small office user range.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From:
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 05:25 PM

OK! I do this a lot in Word!

You can do this in most variants of Word that I have tried. You can do this either BEFORE or AFTER inputting your text.

To input a picture for use as a watermark, get to the drop down menu, under Insert, and select Picture and then click on From File or From ClipArt if you have the picture already.

Next, after the picture is entered into the document, select the picture and double-click on it. This should open a Format Picture box to do things to the picture. It normally comes up in the Picture Tab. This should show something like Image Control in the middle. Where it says Colour (Color in the US) is a drop down menu. In the Word 2002, what you want is called Washout. In Word '97, it said Watermark.

Now, when you have done that, double click on the picture once more, and click on the tab in the Format Picture box which says Layout. Click on Behind Text for the Wrapping Style and Center Horizontal Alignment. For Vertical Alignment, you'll have to position it manually by dragging the picture around.

That's how I do it.

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 07:36 PM

Good explanation George, and it works nicely.

Suggestion, if you do a lot of picture insertions:

In recent Word versions, if you pick "View" off the top toolbar in Word, select "Toolbars" from the dropdown, and put a check mark at the "Picture" toolbar, the "Picture" toolbar should appear whenever you (single) click on a picture and should disappear when your select/insert point is anywhere else. It normally appears floating out in the middle, but if you drag it up to the top bar it should stay there.

I dislike having to double-click anything while I'm in an Office (or Office-like) program, since it usually sends you to some gimmick utility that Mickey thinks is marvelous - and which often destroys what you had nicely set up. (Equation editor is a real p.i.a. - I remove it entirely.)

The "paint bucket" near the right end of the picture toolbar is the "format picture" and gives you access to all of the picture functions, with tabs for individual adjustments. The other icons on that toolbar mostly go to individual tabs of the popup you get with the paint bucket.

Perhaps someday I'll go back and try to figure out what they're babbling about in Word Help under "Watermark," but for now it's not a high priority. It obviously has nothing to do with the question here - at least that I can see.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: John Hardly
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 08:04 PM

George, that worked wonderfully. I have trouble trying to put text over the print (I noticed that it can be done -- I just can't seem to manage to get the text where I want it -- it seems to stay relative to the photo rather than layered over it.)

....still, it works fine to print the watermark photo and then run that paper back through with the copy.

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 11:01 PM

John Hardly -

On the "Format Picture Toolbar," select the "Layout" tab (the same place where you click the "Behind Text,"). Click the "Advanced" button and click to put a check in the "Lock Anchor" box. This will keep the picture from moving around with the text - unless you move the Paragraph that the picture is anchored to. If the anchor isn't locked, sometimes the picture will try to move it's attachment (anchor) and "attach itself" to a different paragraph when you add or delete text nearby.

You can also select whether the position is relative to the paragraph where it's inserted or relative to the page, but it's usually sufficient to lock it to a specific paragraph - if you can keep track of which paragraph that is.

The "Advanced" button area is the same place where you'll need to set the vertical alignment. If you want something other than Left/Right/Center for horizontal position, you can also put in dimensions for that too. The dimensional location can be confusing, and the picture may seem to move if you resize it. The dimensions are always to the top left corner of the image.

It helps when you're doing position layouts to be sure that you're in "Print Layout" viewing mode, and I find it helpful to turn on the "View All" option (in Tools|Options|View Tab, Formatting Marks section, since then you can see all the paragraph marks and the picture anchors to keep track of where they are.

Some people find the "View All" mode distracting; but once you've used it a bit I think you'll find it helpful.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: John Hardly
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 08:57 AM

Thanks, John, that does help.

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 09:30 AM

John H -

Even knowing the lock anchor trick, occasionally a picture will just want to "be someplace" other than where you want it to be. This happens especially if you're using paragraph styles with orphan control or "keep lines together" or "keep with next" setup in the same area as the picture, ... but sometimes happens for no apparent reason.

Often when "strange things happen" if you make the picture rather small, re-position and then lock (or re-lock) the anchor, and then resize to what you want you can lead it back into better behavior; but I really haven't figured out why it goes berserkers occasionally to begin with.

If you make a lot of "image changes" while you're relying on autosave occasionally it seems to throw a clinker or two. Often a Save, and for some reason scrolling up or down a few pages and then coming back to the picture, will reorient things.

Sometimes you just have to mumble at it for a bit.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: Helen
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 02:16 PM

J-i-K,

"..but I really haven't figured out why it goes berserkers occasionally to begin with"

Answer: it's Microsoft!

Thanks for the tips, everyone. I have done it George's way but I didn't know about anchoring the picture and I didn't know you had to put it in the header.

Helen

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 07:55 PM

Helen -

Using George's way, you don't have to put it in the header, but it will print only on the page where you paste it.

If you use the "-" top margin to set absolute position, you should be able to use George's way in the header to get the "washout" effect. Since the header should print first, and text in the body of the document will overprint it, you don't have to do the "behind text" setting. Unfortunately, for images in the header most of the usual picture adjustments, including the "Location" controls, are grayed out in the Image Toolbar, so you'll have to insert paragraphs** ahead of the picture to move it down, and you're limited to Left (Ctl-L)/ Center (Ctl-E) / and right (Ctl-R) paragraph alignment for horizontal location.

** Hint: Insert ONE paragraph ahead of the one where the picture is inserted, and adjust the font size for that paragraph to move the picture up and down. The drop down only lets you select up to 72 pt (1 inch) but you can type anything larger in the box. Word should accept font sizes up 1638 points, which is 22 inches - the maximum page size you can set in Page Layout.

If you have an image editor, you can add white space around the actual image, one side or the other and top/bottom, in the picture file before you insert it into Word, to make the image locate fairly precisely where you want it.

By putting the image in the header it should print on all pages of the section.

It may be just the particular picture I picked for a test, but it appears that the "Watermark" printed from the header is a little "paler" than when it's inserted in the document body and moved behind the text. To make it show a bit more, if you need to, when you apply the "Washout" picture mode reduce the brightness slightly.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From:
Date: 20 Oct 05 - 08:31 PM

I do know about the anchors, but didn't want to get bogged down explaining it all.

Yes, my method does not need the header thing, unless you want the same picture on all of the pages.

A bonus however is that you can put a different picture on each page.

Only problem there is that the files become REALLY large with a lot of pictures.

Subject: RE: Tech: Watermark?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 20 Oct 05 - 09:51 PM

George -

"Really Large" is relative.

"A picture is worth a thousand words," ... but it takes the same disk space as about 50,000 words...

I save quite a lot of "web images," mainly of paintings and other art works. They're "indexed" in Word, with an image and description for each on a separate page. The image files are a bit larger than typical web postings (60 - 100 KB or so usually, some up to 3 or 4 MB). I find I can paste a picture per page up to about 60 or 70 pages before I hit the 32 MB theoretical maximum Word file size. I have gone to around 90 MB in a single Word document, but it gets "fragile." Forty or fifty pages of pictures would be the file-size equivalent of more than a thousand pages (or maybe 10,000 pages) of plain text, with the image sizes I usually use.

For most users I'd generally recommend no more than about a dozen images per document, unless you make thumbnails of the images and paste only thumbnails (very small image files) into the document. With 15 - 20 KB images you could go to a couple of dozen - maybe. Word can handle a lot more, but it's easy to hurt yourself when you push the boundaries.

John