Algorithm to remove stock photos watermarks

Alright, you want to include some images from your search result into your blog post or use the images in your advertisement campaign. Trouble is that most of the images have watermarks that stock photos websites used to mark and protect the images copyright. The low opacity watermarks added onto stock images are difficult to remove especially if the image has a complex background.

The best way to obtain the images without watermarks is to purchase them from the stock photos websites. Which is good by the way because the image creators or photographers get paid.

However, recently Google Research showcased that the watermarks employed by image creators and photographers can be removed automatically with an algorithm. The algorithm can remove the watermarks simply because the watermarks are added in a consistent manner. The "weakness" or consistency allows the algorithm to recover the original image with high accuracy by estimating the "foreground" automatically.

Their work can be viewed at On the Effectiveness of Visible Watermarks

  See also : Binded - Easy peasy copyrighting tool for content creators

Tags : watermark stock-photos google copyright protect-your-work

By Jennifer Loh
