Aquanotus - watermarks online

I want to tell you about my small project, which is useful to bloggers and photographers . Using this service, you can easily resize your photos and illustrations, add frames and watermarks to them.

Once upon a time I wrote an action for Photoshop, which reduces the photo and adds text to it. It was much more convenient than doing everything manually, but it had several key disadvantages. First, you need Photoshop, which is not everywhere. Secondly, you need to download the script. Thirdly, you need to upload photos to some hosting and then find a link to the photo itself. And only after that it was possible to insert a photo into the blog. As you can see - the path is not the shortest.

Periodically, I found some new service for these purposes, but for one reason or another it did not suit me. And I began to think about creating my own utility. The turning point was the release of Silverlight 3 . The ability to edit images and work outside the browser were the things I really missed.

I want to remind you that Silverlight 3 runs on computers with Mac OS X as well .

So, I represent Aquanotus to your court . This is an alpha version. And the goal of this topic is to find omissions that I made during the design of the service. Community preview, so to speak. As you can see in the screenshot, the screen is divided into four main areas:

1. selected images;
2. preview of the result;
3. watermark settings;
4. top panel;

Selected Images

Using the Add pictures button, you can add an arbitrary number of images. The format accepted is .png and .jpg . Very large images can be added to the list for a noticeable amount of time.

To remove an image from the list, click on the cross in the upper right corner:

Preview result

A preview of the result is a real image that you get on the output. Due to some restrictions, the image if the image is cropped by the side panels, then this is the result you get in the saved file:

Watermark Options

In almost any parameter, you can set the exact value from the keyboard by clicking on it:

Change of size

Sets the maximum size for each side. Size changes only in a smaller direction. The maximum width and height is limited to 1000 pixels . The minimum is 100 pixels .

Frame

The frame sets the color and thickness of each side.

Watermark

At the watermark, you can set the text, font, size, transparency, location (left-right, top-bottom), indentation and rotation of the text.

Photo processing

Photo processing occurs when you click on the Process button. At this moment, all interface elements are blocked, a progress indicator is displayed at the bottom, and the images change one after another:



After finishing, you will get a window with links to images:



A slightly modified Guid is used as the file name . Regardless of the format ( png or jpg ), all images are saved in jpg format with quality 90 .

Top panel

In addition to the logo, on the top panel there are buttons for managing presets and a button for installing the application.

Presets

Using the Load preset and Save preset buttons, you can load and save your settings. Now the settings are stored locally and are not synchronized with other computers. In the near future it will be possible to make several presets and they will be available to you anywhere in the world.

Application installation

This is a new feature introduced in Silverlight 3 . Allows you to make a shortcut on the desktop or in the start menu. Also works under the Mac OS the X . To install the application, you need to click on the install button in the upper right
corner:



After that, a confirmation window appears:



After a few seconds, the application can be launched through the start menu as a regular application:



To remove the application, right-click anywhere and select the appropriate item:



If the application is updated on the server, then you will automatically receive the update:



In order for the changes to take effect, you need to restart Aquanotus .

Future plans

In the near future it is planned to add:

• user profiles
• preset support;
• manager of previous downloads;
• support for popular photo hosting;
• use the image as a watermark;
• improving the quality of text rendering;
• ...

Please supplement this list as much as possible.

PS: Follow us on Twitter for updates .