Mike Ryan Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 Ok, before I go off and explain let me tell you why I need this. As part of my job, I develop graphics for customers whether it be company logos or custom holiday cards. The difficult part is this: there is no specific way of showing online customers work created OTHER THAN THUMBNAILS. So, instead I have to have prepay options, which rarely work as expected. The customer feels as if my work is not done correctly, and I lose time and money because of that. There is no safe way in which I could easily show the customer the file without editing it. So, hear me out instead of telling me things like "PDF Format!" "Read Only Format!" and any other format that can easily be cracked or doesnt cost the customer money. As well, I dont want any suggestions on how to operate my business, I have my own ideas and theorys. My idea is to have lockable Paint.NET Files in which nothing can be edited, and the Save As and Save format are completely disbled, as such: I know this is not possible to do this in a filetype plugin as well. So, please Rick can I have this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pyrochild Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 Just give them low-rez versions for the previews. (Scale down to like 400x400) No matter what, if you give them the full version -locked or not- they can just screenshot away and rip you off. ambigram signature by Kemaru [i write plugins and stuff] If you like a post, upvote it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.atwell Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 ...or watermarks. The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.Amy: But how did it end up in there?The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pyrochild Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 I've never been a fan of watermarks. Mostly because I've never yet seen one that I couldn't get rid of. ambigram signature by Kemaru [i write plugins and stuff] If you like a post, upvote it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I Like Pi Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 Paint.NET is open source. It would be trivial for someone to crack the locking. Even the complicated proprietary DRM used on music, paid programs, etc. has been cracked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Ryan Posted March 25, 2008 Author Share Posted March 25, 2008 Pyro, no zooming in. Everything is locked. And besides, there has to be some way via programming to disable screenshots? @David: While that is a commonly used way of protecting things, it isnt exactly doable quite yet in Paint.NET in a one step manor (I am speaking of REAL WATERMARKS Sabrown). As well, a watermark can sometime loose quality. I thank both of you for your input. David, I will watermark until something better comes along. I am also looking at black and whiting things out, washing things away, and other various methods to distort without much loss of quality. Edit: @ I Like Pi: The chance of a Southern Alabama graphic business getting a full fledged programmer is unlikely. And pehaps it would be a new file format? If Paint.NET opens it it would check to be sure that the files to lock were there and functional, if not the image would not be opened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 Save a watermark file(With alpha adjusted already), just load it in PDN on top of your file and bam!! And Use viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2756 to fade 1/2 or some parts so it's not all B/W All creations Ash + Paint.NET [ Googlepage | deviantArt | Club PDN | PDN Fan ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Ryan Posted March 25, 2008 Author Share Posted March 25, 2008 Save a watermark file(With alpha adjusted already), just load it in PDN on top of your file and bam!!And Use viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2756 to fade 1/2 or some parts so it's not all B/W Thankyou Ash, and as Pyro said it still isnt 100% safe. I suppose in this world, nothing truly is. I will post my results of watermarking in my gallery later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pyrochild Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 Pyro, no zooming in. Everything is locked. And besides, there has to be some way via programming to disable screenshots Zooming in? What? What are you talking about? And yes, there is a way to disable screenshots. (Spam random data into the clipboard at a ridiculous interval) But any programmer that does that must immediately be shot. I still don't know what you're talking about with zooming... But yeah. Better watermarks than nothing. In the worst case, you can sue. ambigram signature by Kemaru [i write plugins and stuff] If you like a post, upvote it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Ryan Posted March 25, 2008 Author Share Posted March 25, 2008 I am talking about THESE: :ZoomIn: :ZoomOut: The viewable area is even locked because nearly %100 of the time the customer needs an exact size, and with a screenshot that size cant be filled without loss of quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pyrochild Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 You can provide previews in low-qual JPG (60% or so) Then give nice PNGs or PSDs for final. ambigram signature by Kemaru [i write plugins and stuff] If you like a post, upvote it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoltBait Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 Here's your solution: Invisible Watermarks Download: BoltBait's Plugin Pack | CodeLab | and a Free Computer Dominos Game Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Ryan Posted March 25, 2008 Author Share Posted March 25, 2008 Here's your solution: Invisible Watermarks While that is a good idea, like I said most of my work is printouts and "Employee of the Month" for local businesses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MiguelPereira Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 and following Boltbait's idea you could also encode text into the image... [The stock on my sig is a photo I took not a render from Splatter] [My deviantART][My Gallery][My Space] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Brown Posted March 26, 2008 Share Posted March 26, 2008 What stops users taking a screenshot of paint.net with the image open and then cropping? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Ryan Posted March 26, 2008 Author Share Posted March 26, 2008 What stops users taking a screenshot of paint.net with the image open and then cropping? the fact that the ability to zoom in or out of an image will be locked, and that the ability for the user to crop the image will result in a loss of quality because they would have to resize it to the requested size. Anyways, mods lock this. I dont think I am going to get a solution out of this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.atwell Posted March 26, 2008 Share Posted March 26, 2008 Locked by request. Rick may reply if he has anything to add. The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.Amy: But how did it end up in there?The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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