This is a method I started using when NFTs were on the rise - thieves would have to put actual work into getting rid of the mark - and one that I am now grateful for with the arrival of AI. Why? Because anyone who tries to train an AI on my work will end up with random, disruptive color blobs.
I can't say for sure it'll stop theft entirely, but it WILL make your images annoying for databases to incorporate, and add an extra layer of inconvenience for thieves. So as far as I'm concerned, that's a win/win.
I'll be showing the steps in CSP, but it should all be pretty easy to replicate in Photoshop.
Now: let's use the above image as our new signature file. I set mine to be 2500 x 1000 pixels when I'm just starting out.
Note that your text should not have a lot of anti-aliasing, so using a paint brush to start isn't going to work well with this method. Just use the standard G-Pen if you're doing this by hand, or, just use the text tool and whichever font you prefer.
Once that's done, take your magic wand tool, and select all the black. Here are the magic wand settings I'm using to make the selections:
All selected?
Good.
Now, find a brush with a scattering/tone scraping effect. I use one like this.
You can theoretically use any colors you want for this next part, but I'd recommend pastels as they tend to blend better.
Either way, let's add some color to the text.
Once that's finished,
You're going to want to go to Layer Property, and Border Effect
You'll be given an option of choosing color and thickness. Choose black, and go for at least a 5 in thickness. Adjust per your own preferences.
Now create a layer beneath your sig layer, and merge the sig down onto the blank layer.
This effectively 'locks in' the border effect, which is exactly what we want.
Hooray, you've finished your watermark!
Now let's place that bad boy into your finished piece.
You'll get the best mileage out of a mark if you can place it over a spot that isn't black of white, since you'll get better blending options that way. My preference is for Overlay.
From here, I'll adjust the opacity to around 20-25, depending on the image.
If you don't have a spot to use overlay, however, there's a couple other options. For white, there's Linear Burn, which imho doesn't look as good, but it still works in a pinch.
And for lots of black, you have Linear Light
Either way, you're in business!
EDIT since this has escaped my usual circles, and folks aren't as familiar with my personal usage:
An example of one of my own finished pieces, with watermark, so you can see what I mean about 'relatively unobtrusive'-- I try to at least use them as framing devices, or let them work with the image somehow (or, at the very least, not actively against it).
I know it's a bummer for some people to "ruin" their work with watermarks, which is part of the reason I developed this mark in particular. Its disruption is about as minimal as I can make it while still letting it serve its intended purpose.
There's other methods, too, of course! But this is the one I use, and the one I can speak on. Hope it helps some of you!
I genuinely wish I could see inside Musk’s head or at least get an explanation for how he was thinking his plans would work out.
Like it’s clear now he is fantastically out of touch with reality but I still really wanna know like, to what degree. Did he think people would accept his ultimatum? Did he genuinely think it would only take like 300 people to keep Twitter running?
I was an intern at SpaceX years ago, back it when it was a much smaller company — after Elon got hair plugs, but before his cult of personality was in full swing. I have some insight to offer here.
Back when I was at SpaceX, Elon was basically a child king. He was an important figurehead who provided the company with the money, power, and PR, but he didn’t have the knowledge or (frankly) maturity to handle day-to-day decision making and everyone knew that. He was surrounded by people whose job was, essentially, to manipulate him into making good decisions.
like I knew the FTX crypto exchange was a ponzi scheme but finding out it was run by a polycule of racist Harry Potter tumblr nerds was a real gut punch ngl
The (un)funny thing about this (seven year old) post is that seven years ago the internet was such that one could reasonably imagine that in 5 years there would be other, better platforms that would make tumblr sort of outdated and cringy. Now the alternatives to tumblr are Corporations Spying On You, Absolute Hellhole Of Discourse Over Tumblr Screenshots, Corporations Spying On You, Tumblr Posts But In Video Form While Corporations And The Chinese Government Spy On You, That Platform You Signed On After The Titty Ban Spread Mass Panic And You Never Used Since, and reddit
hi what do you think of [leading question trying to get you to say something i can use against you]?
oh! i think [answer rattled off in about two seconds that doesn't account for every possible counterpoint or life experience every person might have, which will later be interpreted as a statement vaguely referencing some discourse i have never heard of and don't care about]
It appears that boredom lies behind the most creative ideas. That's why quarantine has produced some of the most entertaining activities. One of them is the Getty Museum challenge, that so many of you have already seen in our previous article here.
Yusuf Abdul-Qadir: what percent of the police live in the city?
mayor: about 5% or so
Yusuf Abdul-Qadir: 5%, so 95% don’t live in the city.
mayor: yes.
Yusuf Abdul-Qadir: so when you say that the vast majority of the percentage goes towards salaries, et cetera, fringe benefits, that means that they take their money on 81, go to outside the city, pay taxes in those communities that have some of the best schools while we have an underfunded school district--
someone else: $60 million up.
Yusuf Abdul-Qadir: so i just want to put into context what we’re talking about, because it’s really easy to say, mayor-- and with all due respect, i like you. but that was a very politician answer.
mayor: sorry, what specifically?
Yusuf Abdul-Qadir: the, “we will consider, and we will look.” what we’re saying is we’re not interested in considering and looking. what we’re saying is, actually, there’s $50 million. commit to $20 million cut, because we’re sending money-- as the mayor of Syracuse, when you don’t have a tax base, you’re sending money out of Syracuse. and not just for 30 years-- for the rest of their life because their pensions, their health insurance, their families. so we are funding for other people’s communities to have the promise of the American dream while we are denying it in our community. that’s the context that you, as the mayor, have to look at this under.
so when we talk about renegotiating union contract, what we’re saying is you can’t play around with, “maybe, um, we will--” no. y’all got to go, because you don’t provide a service that is beneficial to the community, that is meaningful to the community. the services that you provide criminalize our community, impoverish our community, reallocate resources to suburbs. we are actually funding the suburbs, both in our police departments and in our schools.
and to be clear, just to be clear, it’s not just the fact of, like, the percentage of people. we’re also funding what race of people are on the police force, the percentage of race of teachers, as well, superintendent, board president. so we want to put in context, because it’s not just a class issue. it’s a race issue. we’re telling black and brown people and poor people, you don’t matter. the devil’s in the data and in the details, mayor. respectfully, it is not acceptable for us to be here considering.]
I’ve seen workplace autonomy get reduced at several jobs I’ve worked at and it always follows the same pattern, where the initial change is “that sucks and I think it’s dumb but at least I can see some rationale behind it” and subsequent changes become arbitrary reminders that your employer controls you.
When I worked at a distribution center, we used to be able to wear headphones. Then one day, someone working at a different distribution center got their headphone cords tangled up in the conveyors and was seriously injured, and we weren’t allowed to wear headphones anymore.
I hated the change, of course, and thought it was stupid, and wondered if the incident they mentioned even happened, but I could at least see the logic to it: “wearing cords around miles of conveyor systems is dangerous.”
So people started bringing portable radios and stuff to work. No cords, no blocked ears, no problem. Until those got banned too. Why? Because they could, and they showed that they could when they banned headphones.
Then I worked at a testing center. After a while, cell phones were banned. And again, there was some logic to the decision: for starters, we were surrounded by confidential information, and also needed to maintain a quiet and discreet atmosphere. It was obviously an unnecessary overreach and showed that they saw their employees as children, but they at least had some security concerns they could justify it with.
So people brought in books and magazines to read during downtime. And then books and magazines were banned too. Why? Because they could, and they showed that they could when they banned cell phones.
It’s tied up with the culture of… I don’t know if there’s a term for it, but it’s something we’ve all seen. If there’s no tasks left to do at work, then stare at a wall. If you’re on the clock, then don’t sit down even if there’s no reason not to sit down. Smile. That whole thing.
Suffering is a misunderstanding.
[…]
It exists… It’s real. I can call it a misunderstanding, but I can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist, or will ever cease to exist. Suffering is the condition on which we live. And when it comes, you know it. You know it as the truth. Of course it’s right to cure diseases, to prevent hunger and injustice, as the social organism does. But no society can change the nature of existence. We can’t prevent suffering. This pain and that pain, yes, but not Pain. A society can only relieve social suffering, unnecessary suffering. The rest remains. The root, the reality. All of us here are going to know grief; if we live fifty years, we’ll have known pain for fifty years… And yet, I wonder if it isn’t all a misunderstanding — this grasping after happiness, this fear of pain… If instead of fearing it and running from it, one could… get through it, go beyond it. There is something beyond it. It’s the self that suffers, and there’s a place where the self—ceases. I don’t know how to say it. But I believe that the reality — the truth that I recognize in suffering as I don’t in comfort and happiness — that the reality of pain is not pain. If you can get through it. If you can endure it all the way.
Might your bitter pain not be the voice of destiny, might that voice not become sweet once you understand it?
[…]
Action and suffering, which together make up our lives, are a whole; they are one. A child suffers its begetting, it suffers its birth, its weaning; it suffers here and suffers there until in the end it suffers death. But all the good in a man, for which he is praised or loved, is merely good suffering, the right kind, the living kind of suffering, a suffering to the full. The ability to suffer well is more than half of life — indeed, it is all life. Birth is suffering, growth is suffering, the seed suffers the earth, the root suffers the rain, the bud suffers its flowering.
In the same way, my friends, man suffers destiny. Destiny is earth, it is rain and growth. Destiny hurts.
Herman Hesse, https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/01/15/hermann-hesse-solitude-suffering-destiny/
So I looked this up and it's honestly really cool. Female suffrage protesters were targeted by A LOT of police brutality so they would train like 30 bodyguards in "suffrajitsu" to protect hunger-strikers from being reincarnated. It was started by a woman named Edith Garrud, who also created an athletics club within WFM. It offered women protection but also an alibi when questioned by the police, and the gymnasium housed suffragists that were in trouble for busting in windows and stuff
