On 13 Dec 04 at 10:53, Mary Sue Ittner wrote: > Our list does not allow attachments, but we have created a wiki > where members can upload their images so that anyone who wants to > can go online to view them... > The images remain the property of the photographer, but there is no > way we can protect them from people saving them to their own > computer. Occasionally someone who is surfing the net becomes aware > that someone has copied the images and is now using them on a > commercial site. You can watermark the images so that it is impossible to eradicate a statement of ownership. I've experimented with PaintShopPro and found that the following technique works fairly well. Create a new black and white image 1.5 times bigger than the image you want to protect. Color the entire image black. Use the text tool to place your warning text, in white, on the image. Repeat until the image is filled with lines of warning text. I found that Microsoft Sans Serif worked pretty well as a typeface for this purpose. Rotate this image 45 degrees counterclockwise, then crop it to the size of the image you want to protect. Assign your warning-text image to the to-be-protected image as a mask. Adjust the gamma to, say, 2.2. Because of the mask, the gamma will only be adjusted where the white lettering exists on the mask. This means the warning text becomes visible across the protected image in the form of slight variations in brightness and contrast. By astute choice of typeface, size, and gamma correction, you can watermark your pictures without obscuring the details of the image. I doubt anyone would be able to easily undo such watermarking! A suitable warning text might be "for exclusive use on the pbs wiki/copyright 2005 John Doe, Podunk, Indiana/do not reproduce" but you are free to write anything you want. If someone asks permission and you decide to grant it, use a fresh copy of the picture and watermark it referring to the site for which you have given permission to use it on. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate on beautiful Vancouver Island