Photoshop Magic! 2.0

Thats right people, its time for another instalment of everyones favorite image-tweaking article, Photoshop Magic! (Maybe I'm exadgerating a bit, but oh well...) Today's topic will be that of watermarks.

A watermark, according the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary is a marking in paper resulting from differences in thickness usually produced by pressure of a projecting design in the mold or on a processing roll and visible when the paper is held up to the light. An example of such would be if you hold and of the "new" paper money bills of the US up to a light, you see the dead president to the side of the actual picture (If you don't have access to US money, big Co.'s sometimes have watermarked paper you might have seen as well).

Now that you know what a real watermark is, we can move on to today's real topic, digital watermarkings. Of all the foul and twisted things the internet has produced, this has to be one of the worst. It's basically when people find a rare image (that they don't legally own, mind you) and slap their own logo onto it, ruining the picture for anyone else. One of the largest culprits ever of this scheme is IGN.com. They have many wonderful resources, and provide information to millions, but as of late they've become corrupt. On top of putting into effect their cruel bait-and-switch "Insider" program into effect, you see more and more of this everyday:

Now, all things in moderation, that might not have been that bad. IGN has employees to pay and so on, so they really aren't in a position to "lose money" from people "stealing" these images that they apparently "own". OK, lets forget that, for the moment.

So big-enchalata comporations watermark there stuff. Thats one thing; but when little indiviualy owned websites do it, that's another. They don't even make money from their websites and if they do its definatly not what's supporting them. So what's there justification? I'm not exactly sure, but I doubt there is any. When I see things like this, it just kind of makes me mad:


Now, all of a sudden, those perfectly lush, colorful images, are useless to everyone. Mind you I'm sure this was the intent; what I'm saying is that these people do not have the right to do this. Unless its their work. For artists, thats fine, watermarks are no different then signing your work; but unless you drew these yourself, they're not yours to slap your name on. Notice how there are very few watermarked images on Classic Zelda (from other sites) because we try at all costs to provide a "clean" website, and in fact we encourage people to take generic Nintendo images from this site. We don't own them, so why should we care if other people use them as well? What we would mind however, is if people started swiping custom things, like the banners over Gamepages. Aside form that though, images should be free.

Just on a final note, we'd like to promise you that no matter how cool or elite or secret an image is that we have (if that ever happens), you'll NEVER see this anywhere on Classic Zelda. -------->

Now, normally on Photoshop Magic! we'd provide a "Part II" and tell you how fix the presented problem. That's where the true horror of watermarks shows itself; there is no way to fix them. You can never "remove" them, what lies underneath that stupid little logo is lost forever except only to the the holder of the original image. So, to wrap up this edition, we'd just like to sincerely ask you webmasters reading out there, "Please don't pollute the web with watermarks. They're no fun for anyone who sees your site, and you don't even have justification to put them there in the first place."

This concludes the rant on evil watermarks, I hope I've made aware to you what a problem this is. Return to Classic Zelda