X3Photo Gallery Forums

dsellung wrote:I wonder if it is possible, to let X3 automatically add watermarks to photos? I read it wasn't possible in X2, but hey - it's 2015!

It was actually possible at some point in X2, but we removed it back then for several reasons:

1. Imagemagick PHP extension
Watermark requires "Imagemagick" PHP extension, which is not a standard extension. Actually, this might be possible with the basic GD extension now, so this point might not be legit any more.

2. JPG re-compression
The biggest issue, is that adding a watermark requires re-saving the JPG image, and therefore re-compressing it in JPG format. This is very undesirable, especially for "photographs" because it is not a "lossless" operation ... It is like a double-compression upon an already compressed photo.

There are other issues, like should the scaled-down versions have the watermark also? ... and if so, should the watermark be scaled on the smaller versions also?

I think the only way it could be solved, would be by implementing one of the following:

A) Somehow add watermarks in the same process that uploads- and resizes images from the panel. For example, your originals are 5000px, and in the upload process, they are resized down to 2000px and a watermark is added in the same process, without double-compressing the image.

B) Upload ultra-large-size images to maintain as "originals" on server, and create watermarked downsized versions from the original. This would generally prevent double-compression. However, it is not very feasible, because it is unlikely your server is powerful enough to resize such large images, and besides, it would require a lot of storage space for full-size images.

You can see that this is not a simple implementation?

dsellung wrote:Actually, adding the watermark in the upload-resize-process sounds logical and easy to me, but I of course don't know how this technically works. So I believe you that it is not that easy.
And I hope that maybe some das it will be possible.

This may be a plausible option, and we may look into it ...

dsellung wrote:Btw, is there a possibility for disabling the right-click of anything else to prevent people from stealing images?

Not yet, but we plan to integrate such image-protection, probably before the watermark option. Keep in mind, although this will prevent right-clicking, it does not offer true protection ... Users who know how to use devtools or access the cache, can easily access the images that are loaded into their browser.