The purpose of this post is to show how to watermark your sensitive pictures (ie; with chest scars, breathing tubes, chest tubes, and other medically sensitive images) to protect them from being stolen, and falling victim to scammers on the internet who use them to gain sympathy from strangers and earn money from "shares" on Facebook and other social media websites.
example :
Although many people share these photos when they come across them because they are genuinely kind hearted people, they do not realize that the ones saying "1 share = 100 prayers" are actually getting money from your "prayers". They only post a sad picture of a sick child or tragedy to evoke emotion from people, to turn shares into promoting their own Facebook page or website (and for alot of these scammer, pay per click is where the cash is at, so they do not care how they get the clicks, or whose child they take advantage of).
A watermark is an opaque line of text intended to show a pictures true origin.
- commonly used to prevent theft of image
You can watermark a photo on just about any photo editing program/application. Whether it is on your phone, computer or tablet. Personally I do a lot of my editing with Pixlr by Auto Desk on Android, and on a website called Picmonkey.com. If you don't plan on editing pictures in any other way, I would suggest searching for watermark in Google Play or App Store. There are many free applications, and doing this will save your childs, or otherwise sensitive picture from being exploited.
Tips on watermarking
- Put the watermark over the most "sensitive" part of the picture, for instance, I put them over my sons chest scars.
- Use a text that links the picture back to YOU. I use my sons Facebook support page URL.
- Make it bold enough that somebody can't edit it out. If the text is too light, photoshop can remove it fairly easily. You can still "fade" the color slightly, but use good judgement when doing so.
example:
How to make the text opaque
(I am using Pixlr by Autodesk)
You can never be too careful when posting things on the internet. Alot of bad people spend their lives on the computer looking for someone, or something to exploit for easy money, don't let your childs medical condition ( or other tragedy ) be one of them.
THANK YOU!
