I've recently run into a bit of a problem with watermarking, and I'm wondering if anyone has any feasible solutions. This last Thursday I finished up with my last official day of internship at a medical visualization company in NYC with my last "unofficial" day being this upcoming Wednesday to finish up some other work.

I've asked my boss about putting some of my work up here and on my portfolio site (whenever I update it) for comments and critiques, and he's agreed under the condition that it is watermarked/labeled with the company name, logo, and copyright date, in a manner that it cannot be removed, and the original work then used by someone else other than the client whom paid for it.

Now this here is the problem. I don't really know of any method to both watermark/lable the work so that it can both be reasonably critiqued and also prove difficult to remove the watermarking. Any suggestions?

The problem is... any kind of watermark can be easily removed by tech-savy people... and from what you describe, I'd guess that those people are the only ones that'd ever be interested in removing the watermark in the first place.

The general rule is.. if the images contain confidential information, you shouldn't be releasing them in the first place... and if they don't.. then what do you need the watermark for?

What makes the images so special that people may want to somehow use them for their own profit? I mean, I just never came across anything like that before, and would like to know more about it if you don't mind.

Oh, the only example I can think of is very high-rez artwork that the artist doesn't want spread because he sells prints. Of course, in that case he doesn't use watermarks or anything, he just uploads low-rez versions.

Maybe something like this?
That would be a pain to remove and doesn't stand in the way of looking at textures all that much.

[ QUOTE ]
What makes the images so special that people may want to somehow use them for their own profit? I mean, I just never came across anything like that before, and would like to know more about it if you don't mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

The company I did the internship for produces medical images and animations for different companies that hire us. So in the course of making those images and animations we end up building a library of various models of tools, organs, equipment, and textures for these objects. The client who hired us out owns the final animations or images rendered by the company I did work for, but not the assets used in their creation.

The thought process is that if suitable alternatives are released (such as high quality renderings without watermarks, labeling or copyright) through employee's posting them online (even with approval) then it might impact the client in some way.

For instance one of the projects was to prepare CG black and white illustrations for an upcoming book on the moving body. If color renderings of the same models all of a sudden started appearing on, for instance, wikipedia, prospective buyers of the book may be less inclined to purchase it if there is a similar free alternative.

Hence the need for watermarking/labeling and copyright info. Its also a sublte form of marketing, along the lines of "Company X produced this, perhaps I'll hire them to do work for me too". I'm guessing its more the marketing standpoint than the theft one.

Edit: Thanks Fog, I might use that idea for the texture flats.

i'd suggest integrating the watermark into ur scene. ie. its a 3d object that gets reflected, casts shadows, and is fairly close to other objects in the scene. as mentioned, no watermark is fool-proof, but i figure this to be one way to make it annoying to try and get rid of a watermark?