Street Photography Magazine

Invisible Watermarks | Tool Test

Conclusion:

The Future Is Cloudy

Most sub-branches of the software industry
tend to be dominated by oligopolies,
and the digital watermark market is no
exception. Our last major watermark test
three years ago included no fewer than
five products, but only Digimarc and
SignMyImage have managed to survive until
today. This is probably due to mediocre
robustness on the part of many systems
combined with a general lack of demand
from individual consumers. Security remains
a product that is a lot more difficult to
sell than a new, full-frame DSLR with an
ultra-high-resolution sensor.
The Web-based search functionality
offered by both contenders has reduced the
amount of effort photographers have to make
to find stolen images, but annual tracking fees
charged by the manufacturers make them less
attractive to some users.
The future of watermarking most probably
lies in the cloud. Using Photoshop to embed
an individual Digimarc transaction ID in a

series of images is still a painstaking process.

In contrast, an online service like Vericuff

can automatically apply a pre-defined

SignMyImage watermark to any image at the

moment it is sold.

And while the subject of oligopolies is still

fresh in our minds, perhaps Google will one

day see the light and extend Picasa to include

online shop and watermarking functionality.

Such a move would surely bring the rather

specialized subject of watermarking to the

attention of a broader public. Regardless

of whether money is to be made, most

photographers are sure to want to know

where their images can be found on the

wonderful World Wide Web. (tho)

Program URL Minimum Price Comments

SITMark Image/ImageMark http://www.sit.fraunhofer.de n/a No consumer products available

SureSign, Hide & Seek,

Mandelsteg, PGE106, StegDos,

S-tools, S-tools2

http://www.highwatersignum.com free Not updated,

Demo software free,

Company licenses fee-paying

WNSTORM http://www.uni-hamburg.de free Development stopped, no longer available

Eikonamark http://www.alphatecltd.com n/a Website offline

Icemark http://www.phibit.com approx. US$47 Last update 2009

SysCoP http://www.mediasec.com n/a Website offline

JK_PGS http://www.epfl.ch free Development stopped, no longer available

Steganos Security Suite http://www.demcom.com n/a No longer available

PixelTag http://www.media.mit.edu free Development stopped, no longer available

Stirmark http://www.petitcolas.net free Tool for testing the robustness of

watermarks, only available as source code

SureSign http://www.signumtech.com approx. US$4,500 Development stopped

Photopatrol http://www.photopatrol.de free Cloud-based watermark service,

Website no longer current

LEGACY SOFTWARE (old or not updated)

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