But it is no longer necessary to hide the data without protection, passwords and keys can be used to protect the hidden data further.

OpenPuff is a portable steganography and marking software for Windows. The interface displays all available options when the application is started.

Here it is possible to hide or unhide data under Steganography, or set, check or cleanup marks.

Hide Files, Unhide Files

You see a configuration window when you click on the hide button in the main interface.

You need to specify a password under (1) with a minimum length of eight characters and a maximum length of 32 characters.

A target file is selected under (2). The maximum size may not exceed 256 Megaybtes. You may want to consider using an archive format like zip or rar if you need to hide multiple files.

Once you have selected the target file you need to select one or multiple carriers under (3). Carriers are the files the data gets added to. The bytes added to each carrier file are displayed immediately after they have been added.

You need to make sure that the carrier’s available byte size exceeds the size of the selected file that you want to hide. For that, you can make changes to the bit selection screen (4).

One interesting option is the ability to add a decoy which basically is a second file and password which you could then reveal in case someone detects the hidden data in the files.

A click on Hide Data processes the files by adding the data of the selected file that you want to hide to all of them. A save window is displayed automatically to store the processed files in a different folder than the original files.

The processed files open up normally in compatible viewers. If you have added data to images, they would still show up as images in image viewers.

The unhide process basically reverses the process. You still need to enter the password that you have used to protect the data. Then you select all carrier files and the bit selection that you have selected. You are then presented with a save as window to select a folder to save the hidden file to.

Marking

Marking, or watermarking, is the second feature of OpenPuff. You can basically add a string to one or multiple text files which could then be used as proof that you are the rightful owner, for instance when copyright issues occur.

A click on set Mark opens a basic interface with options to enter a custom string of up to 32 characters and the files that need to be marked with that string.

You can then use the check mark option to check if the mark is still present, or cleanup to remove marks from files.

A video has been created by the developer that demonstrates the capabilities of the software. It explains how to hide files and other features. An older program version is used for the video demonstration.

OpenPuff can be downloaded from the developer website over at Fortune City. The page looks dated but the software has been last updated a few days ago. Developers can download the source code of the application. A help file in English and Italian is available on the page as well.

Regular readers on the other hand may find the watermarks irritating, as they tend to reduce the quality of the screenshots and images, if done wrong.

Watermark Magick is a free bilingual digital watermarking software for Windows. The program’s main feature is to process a folder full of images at once. The main interface contains all configuration options.

digital watermarking

The source and destination directories are configured at the top. The source directory contains the pictures that need to be watermarked, the destination directory will be used to store the processed images.

The watermarking options are configured on the left. Here it is possible to select the type of watermark that should be applied. The program supports image and text watermarks, and can display them in a frame if desired.

Various settings, including the position on each image can be defined here as well. Finally, it is possible to include subdirectories in the process.

The right side of the interface lists advertising options, which are completely optional. The options can be used to add additional textual information to the images that are processed by the software.

Below that are thumbnails of the original images and images with watermarks. A click on the big green button starts the watermarking. The images with watermarks thumbnail displays how the watermarked images look like after they have been processed.

This makes it easier to apply corrections to get the watermarks in the right locations on the images.

Watermark Magick is an easy to use program that is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. It requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0.

Watermark Image Software is a tool for the Windows operating system that can be used to create custom watermarks. The program can be used to watermark one or multiple images in one process.

The watermarking process begins by selecting a source directory on the computer system. It is possible to include subfolders and their images in the watermarking process. The destination directory is by default a different directory to avoid overwriting the original images.

It is furthermore possible to select the output format, resize the images and to define how and where the watermark is placed on the images.

The user can select both text and image watermarks to be placed on the images. The location in each image, the transparency of the watermark as well as the image and text for the watermark can be selected here as well.

The preview button can be used to create a temporary watermark for the first image which is displayed in the applications’ interface which is handy to test if the selected watermark is exactly how it should look like.

The Watermark Image Software can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It is compatible with the Windows operating system and requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0.

CopyRightLeft is a Open-Source application that has two processing modes. The first is an image by image mode that manipulates one image at a time. You can use the tool to open an image in many known formats including jpg, gif, bmp, tiff and png and save the image in the same formats except gif. You can then enter a text, define the font size, color and many other options. It is for instance possible to add the copyright notice at the bottom of the image, in the center or rotate it to place it diagonal.

Instead of opening and manipulating every image by itself you could use batch processing to process a number of images at once. It is possible to select a number of files, a directory or a file list from a text document and process them one after the other. CopyRightLeft can be run in most Windows versions. I was able to run it in Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows XP without problems.

Many normal users who visit your website will probably dislike that all images on your website have a copyright notice thus preventing the full view of the image. It is up to you to decide whether to use it to fight content theft.