Watermarking Images with VB.NET?

[Mitchell Vincent]

It seemed like a simple enough task when I started but turned into
something that I have to ask for help on!

I need a fast way to watermark some GIF images that some of my software
is going to produce. I've found several examples but they all seem to be
missing some pretty key pieces (like being able to save the resulting
watermarked image).

Anyway, if anyone can point me to come concise tips on programatically
applying watermarks to GIF images I would sure appreciate it. I'm not
opposed to buying something as long as the distribution is royalty free
and the license is affordable. I found "CoolWaterMark"
(http://com.anggogo.com/products/) but the site just doesn't leave me
with a very professional warm fuzzy feeling

Many thanks!

 

[Lucas Tam]

It seemed like a simple enough task when I started but turned into
something that I have to ask for help on!

I need a fast way to watermark some GIF images that some of my software
is going to produce. I've found several examples but they all seem to be
missing some pretty key pieces (like being able to save the resulting
watermarked image).

Anyway, if anyone can point me to come concise tips on programatically
applying watermarks to GIF images I would sure appreciate it. I'm not
opposed to buying something as long as the distribution is royalty free
and the license is affordable. I found "CoolWaterMark"
(http://com.anggogo.com/products/) but the site just doesn't leave me
with a very professional warm fuzzy feeling

I'm sure you can do it with the System.Drawing classes... but here is
another (free) alternative:

http://www.imagemagick.org/index.html

 

[Bob Powell [MVP]]

You can draw directly on an image but not on an indexed image such as a GIF.
You'd have to convert it to 32bpp first, draw on it and then, if GIF was
really necessary, save that as a gif again. This brings up the other
problems of having a non-specific palette for the newly saved GIF which can
seriously degrade colour fidelity for this file format.

The GDI+ FAQ has many articles on drawing on images, GIF palettes and a link
to an article on creating octtree palettes.



--
Bob Powell [MVP]
Visual C#, System.Drawing

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