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OCTOBER 09, 2002 Watermarking Your Media Everyday more and more companies are putting video content on their site. Often it is in the form of a QuickTime movie, or streaming media files like Windows Media or Real. Providing content to viewers in this fashion is great as it allows the visitor to get more information than they would be able to simply by reading words. The problem with some clips or streams you put on your website is that visitors can download your work to their hard drive, repost it on their website, or pass it along to others who have never been to your site. To make sure that you are getting the proper credit you deserve for your work, one way to protect it is by watermarking your media. [an error occurred while processing this directive] Cleaner 5.1.1 from discreet allows you to watermark your media during the encode process. Here’s how to create a standard watermark. In order to create a small bug logo in the corner of your screen first open Adobe Photoshop (or image editor of your choice, and create a blank canvas that is the same size as the final compressed movie. For this example, I created a canvas size of 320 x 240, with a transparent background. Load your logo in and resize as needed. To create transparency in the watermark, use an alpha channel to define the transparent areas of the logo.
Save the image as an uncompressed PICT file with alpha channels. In Cleaner, under the Image tab, you will find the option to set the watermark.  Place a check in the box and then click on the Set button to select the watermark image you just created. With Cleaner’s Dynamic Preview (Control+D) you can preview how the watermark will look in the final image.  It is very simple to create a watermark to protect you work. You should also get in the habit of protecting your media files by including embedded information that can be entered under the Metadata section.
NOTE: This tutorial only covered Cleaner 5.1.1 from discreet on the PC platform. As soon as we get Cleaner 6 for the Mac, we’ll provide an update to this tutorial. When not working deep in the labs of the DMN Central Division testing the latest and greatest software/hardware products Stephen Schleicher can be found at the local university teaching a few courses on video and web production. He can be reached at schleicher@mindspring.com. You can also visit him on the web at www.mindspring.com/~schleicher
Related sites: • Animation Artist • Animation Supplement • AV Video • Broadcast Newsroom • Content Mastering • Corporate Media News • Design Supplement • Digital Animators • Digital Post Production • Digital Producer • Digital Video Editing • Digital Webcast • DVD Creation • Film and Video Magazine • The WWUG Related forums: [an error occurred while processing this directive] 
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