swankyleo
31st December 2007, 14:46
Recently naughtypope posted a new version of ScreenShot which supports watermarks HERE ([Only registered and activated users can see links]). After receiving quite a few PM's from forum members for helping them out with watermarks, I decided its best to write a tutorial which would be easy to follow. So here it is...:)
For making a simple watermark with your name on it, all you need is a good image editor (I used paintshop pro) to create the source bitmaps and Bitmap converter tool to convert those bitmaps to mbm. Now lets start with the sample iPmartŪ forum watermark shown below. This watermark when used will imprint iPmartŪ forum on your screenshot in white color.
First decide upon the color you want for your text. Now you need to create an empty bitmap the size of you phone screen (here it's 240X320) and background color should be the color of your text. (here it's white). Now save this bitmap as wm.bmp. When saving its good to use the minimum possible bit depth for the selected color.
Use the following as reference:
1 Bit = 2 Colors/ Monochrome (Black & White)
4 Bit = 16 Colors
8 bit = 256 Colors / Grayscale
24-bit = 16.7 million Colors
Since I have used white I can save it as a 1-bit (Monochrome) bitmap.
Now lets create the mask. Create a new 8-bit Grayscale bitmap of the same size as the previous image and background color as black. I have used black because I want the mask to be completely transparent. If you want to fade the screenshot you can use any shade of gray as the background color. The darker the shade, the lesser the fading. Now use the text tool of the editor and place your text on the image wherever you like. You can use any font of your choice, but remember the text color has to be white. You could also get more creative and place some cool graphics using Wingdings and other fonts.
When done save this file as mask.bmp (8-bit Grayscale)
Let's create the watermark now. Open up a command prompt in the directory where you extracted the attached bmconv.exe. I am assuming that you have saved the wm.bmp & mask.bmp files in the same directory.
Bitmap converter has the following syntax:
BMCONV Outputfile [OPT]bmp_1 ... [OPT]bmp_n
Outputfile specifies the MBM(multi-bitmap) file name.
bmp_n specifies the nth source bitmap file name.
OPT may be one of /1, /2, /4, /8, /c4, /c8, /c12, /c16, /c24
/1, /2, /4, /8 specify bits per pixel for a grayscale bitmap
/c4, /c8, /c12, /c16, /c24 specify bits per pixel for a color bitmap
So to create the sample watermark, I'll use the following command:
bmconv.exe watermark.mbm /1wm.bmp /8mask.bmp
Output:
BMCONV version 103.
Compiling...
Multiple bitmap store type: File store
Epoc file: watermark.mbm
Bitmap file 1 : wm.bmp
Bitmap file 2 : mask.bmp
Success.
If you created a 24-bit color bitmap, you would use the following command:
bmconv.exe watermark.mbm /c24wm.bmp /8mask.bmp
Successful execution of this command will create watermark.mbm in the same directory. :mrgreen:
For making a simple watermark with your name on it, all you need is a good image editor (I used paintshop pro) to create the source bitmaps and Bitmap converter tool to convert those bitmaps to mbm. Now lets start with the sample iPmartŪ forum watermark shown below. This watermark when used will imprint iPmartŪ forum on your screenshot in white color.
First decide upon the color you want for your text. Now you need to create an empty bitmap the size of you phone screen (here it's 240X320) and background color should be the color of your text. (here it's white). Now save this bitmap as wm.bmp. When saving its good to use the minimum possible bit depth for the selected color.
Use the following as reference:
1 Bit = 2 Colors/ Monochrome (Black & White)
4 Bit = 16 Colors
8 bit = 256 Colors / Grayscale
24-bit = 16.7 million Colors
Since I have used white I can save it as a 1-bit (Monochrome) bitmap.
Now lets create the mask. Create a new 8-bit Grayscale bitmap of the same size as the previous image and background color as black. I have used black because I want the mask to be completely transparent. If you want to fade the screenshot you can use any shade of gray as the background color. The darker the shade, the lesser the fading. Now use the text tool of the editor and place your text on the image wherever you like. You can use any font of your choice, but remember the text color has to be white. You could also get more creative and place some cool graphics using Wingdings and other fonts.
When done save this file as mask.bmp (8-bit Grayscale)
Let's create the watermark now. Open up a command prompt in the directory where you extracted the attached bmconv.exe. I am assuming that you have saved the wm.bmp & mask.bmp files in the same directory.
Bitmap converter has the following syntax:
BMCONV Outputfile [OPT]bmp_1 ... [OPT]bmp_n
Outputfile specifies the MBM(multi-bitmap) file name.
bmp_n specifies the nth source bitmap file name.
OPT may be one of /1, /2, /4, /8, /c4, /c8, /c12, /c16, /c24
/1, /2, /4, /8 specify bits per pixel for a grayscale bitmap
/c4, /c8, /c12, /c16, /c24 specify bits per pixel for a color bitmap
So to create the sample watermark, I'll use the following command:
bmconv.exe watermark.mbm /1wm.bmp /8mask.bmp
Output:
BMCONV version 103.
Compiling...
Multiple bitmap store type: File store
Epoc file: watermark.mbm
Bitmap file 1 : wm.bmp
Bitmap file 2 : mask.bmp
Success.
If you created a 24-bit color bitmap, you would use the following command:
bmconv.exe watermark.mbm /c24wm.bmp /8mask.bmp
Successful execution of this command will create watermark.mbm in the same directory. :mrgreen: