Technology Preview: Watermark Effect
The following describes a feature of the upcoming April 2007 Edition of SSP.
The Watermark ProModule was introduced back in 2001 with SSP 5.0. This effect
provided a set of watermark images that could be embedded into background
images. The Custom Watermark ProModule was introduced in 2002 adding the capability
to let you pick your own image to be used as a watermark. The Custom
Watermark effect (now simply called Watermark effect) has been converted to the RipFX® technology and has new enhancements. Most significantly, the
Watermark effect can now be used with videos. That's right. Within SSP you can
now place a screen-bug type logo on a motion background using the Watermark
effect.
The Watermark effect now also has additional rendering methods. Previously you could render watermark by adding oritinal watermark image colors, adding a single color, or adding white to the target image. The new Watermark effect provides three new rendering methods: Subtract Colors, Subtract White, and Contrast. The most useful of the three is probably Contrast, which is now the default rendering method. With Contrast, the image is converted to grayscale, then uses the darkest areas of the watermark image to subtract white from the target image and uses the lightest areas of the watermark to add white to the target image. This creates a nice contrasting watermark that can be seen with both light and dark backgrounds. The Subtract Color and Subtract White is useful for situations where the background image is light color.
A few capabilities, however, have not carried over to the new version of the Watermark effect. The stock watermark images that were included with the original Watermark ProModule are not being distributed with the new version for the time being. Also, the capability to set a watermark to a single color other than white has not been implemented with the new version of the Watermark effect.
There is another change to note as well. The previous version of the Custom Watermark effect embedded the user-selectable image into the slide show. The new version of the Watermark effect only references external files. This is particularly significant for those of you who will be using slide shows and display properties that presently use a custom watermark. Not to worry. SSP will, when loading a slide show or display property containing an old Custom Watermark, will extract the watermark image and save it out to a file where it can then be used by the new Watermark effect.
The Watermark effect is included in the new Effects Collection 2 plug-in and is available with a Professional Level license.
Watermark using the Add Colors method.
Watermark using the Subtract Colors method.
Watermark using the Add White method.
Watermark using the Subtract White method.
Watermark using the Contrast method.
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