uMark Blog
Tips and tricks about adding watermarks to photos and how to use uMark
uMark 5.5 for Mac with invisible watermarks
Today we have released a new version of uMark for Mac which incorporates several new features.

IPTC values as watermark

Along with EXIF metadata you can now also insert IPTC properties as watermarks like title, by-line, copyright or whichever other IPTC values you may have set for the photo. The IPTC tags are listed at the end of the watermark macro list after the EXIF tags.

Format date in the macros

You can now tell uMark to enter the date from the macros in the format you want. uMark supports numerous date macros from EXIF data - date the photo was taken, the date it was modified and such. Earlier there was no way to control what kind of date uMark inserted as watermark. Now you can. You can now format the date to be inserted as Day/Month/Year or Month/Day/Year or any other format with the separate of your choice. By using various placeholders you can include various parts of a date.

D - Inserts the day from the date in double digits from 01 to 31
DD - Inserts the name of the day of week in selected language
M - Inserts the month from the date in double digits from 01 to 12
MM - Inserts the month name from the date for the language you have selected
Y - Inserts the full 4 digit year from the date
H - Insert the hours in 24 hour format from 00 to 23
N - Inserts the minutes from 00 to 59
S - Inserts the seconds from 00 to 59

Default format is Y-M-D H:N:S which is entire date string. You can change the format the way you like and can instantly see the preview how the date will look like below. That is only for a preview, the actual date that will be inserted will be according to the macro you have selected in the format you have chosen. uMark will even remember the format for you so you don't have to set the format every time you enter a date based macro.

Today's date in macros

We have added an option to add today's date in the macros. This date can also be formatted in the same way as mentioned above. This will come useful if you wish to add the date you are watermarking the photos as a watermark. You can always enter the today's date manually, but if you just use the macro and save it there's one less thing to worry about.

Macros in the QR code

You can now use macros in QR code watermark as well. So instead of having a static QR code on all photos you can have a different QR code on each photo based on what macros you include in the watermark.

Remove metadata from watermarked photos

In the new version of uMark for Mac, you can control whether to include EXIF, IPTC and other metadata while saving the watermarked photos. By default uMark saves the photos with all the original metadata, now you can choose what sort of metadata to include while saving. You have 3 options -

Include All - This is the default option which copies all metadata from the original photo to the watermark photo.

Copyright Only - This option include only the copyright related EXI tags while removing all other EXIF metadata.

Exclude Geolocation - This option will include all original metadata but remove any geo location info which may be embedded in the photo by your camera. This is a very useful option. If you have taken photos at your home or studio and if your phone camera or DSLR has included GPS coordinates in it, it is better to remove such information before you post the photos online.

Exclude All - This option will not include any metadata while saving your watermarked photo. This also means you can use uMark as EXIF data remover to strip all metadata from your photos. If you do not add any watermark but just use this option to save copies of your photos, you can get rid of all metadata from a photo without affecting your original photos.

Predefined positions for the tiled watermarks

Till now you could only insert tiled watermarks at left most or top most edge of a photo and adjust it with padding, now you can place the tiled watermarks at 3 different positions depending on whether you want to tile horizontally or vertically. If you tile a watermark horizontally you can place it at top, middle or bottom, similarly a vertically tiled watermark can be placed on left, center or right of the photo.
Positioning options for horizontally tiled watermarks

Positioning options for vertically tiled watermarks


Auto loading a saved watermark when uMark starts

You can save your watermark settings for repeat use so you don’t have to recreate them every time. uMark also automatically saves your last watermark so if you forgot to save it you can just reuse your last watermark. Now we are making it even easier - you can actually set a saved watermark to auto load whenever you open uMark. So you just need to select your photos and hit Save Photos button to watermark them.

To set a watermark on auto load you need to save it first. After you save the watermark you need to click on the Add Watermark button and select Add Saved Watermark option. When the Load Settings window opens you can see a new button called Set Auto Load under your list of saved watermarks. Select a saved watermark and click on the button to Auto load the selected watermark when uMark starts. The watermark you have set for auto load will show up in bold in the saved watermarks list. You can choose another watermark setting to auto load by selecting it and clicking the Auto load button.

You can only set one setting to auto load, however within a setting you can have multiple individual watermarks. If you want to remove a watermark from auto loading, just select the watermark and click on the Remove Auto Load button.

Invisible watermark/Copyright metadata

You can now add your copyright as metadata in your photos, which means you can add invisible watermarks to your photos. You can see a new option in the Add Watermark options Add Copyright To Metadata. When you select this type of watermark you can enter your copyright information including your contact details in a new window.

This information will be added to the photos as EXIF and IPTC tags. uMark will save the information you fill in this window so next time you want to add copyright tags to your metadata you don;t have to type it all again.

Watermarked photos in the same resolution as originals

This was a major bug that we have fixed. uMark now saves the photos with the original resolution of the photo so your 300 DPI print quality photo will be saved with 300 DPI.

All the existing users of users of uMark for Mac can upgrade for free. Users of uMark for Windows can buy the Mac version for half the price.

Download uMark for Mac now.
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