Digimarc Barcode for Commercial Print | Content Selection

10 April 2021

Digimarc Barcode for Commercial Print | Quickstart Guide
Digimarc Barcode for Commercial Print | Content Selection

• Digimarc Barcode for Commercial Print | Content Selection | Selection Guidelines
• Digimarc Barcode for Commercial Print | Content Selection | Image Placement
• Digimarc Barcode for Commercial Print | Content Selection | Color Spaces
• Digimarc Barcode for Commercial Print | Content Selection | Image Requirements

Follow these guidelines for best results when using the Digimarc Barcode Manager for Commercial Print

This section provides you with some simple guidelines for applying Digimarc Barcodes to images destined for print. As you gain experience, you will undoubtedly refine these recommendations for your use.

• A busy image hides a Digimarc Barcode well, so you will be able to increase the strength of the Digimarc Barcode without impacting your image quality.
• Areas of bright highlights or dark shadows do not accept Digimarc Barcodes well. In highlights, where color coverage approaches 0%, there are not enough pixels to apply a Digimarc Barcode successfully. In shadows, where color coverage approaches 100%, the ability to apply a Digimarc Barcode is essentially halved because of ink saturation. You may need to increase the strength setting using the slider to improve detectability. You can also strengthen the Digimarc Barcode in highlights, but this can introduce unwanted visible artifacts.
• For the same reason that highlights do not accept Digimarc Barcodes well, pure white areas — those with 0% color coverage — cannot accept Digimarc Barcodes at all. If you need to apply a Digimarc Barcode to a pure white area, consider adding a light color tint into larger white areas. It will need to be dark enough for your printer to reproduce for sufficient color coverage to embed a detectable Digimarc Barcode. Unfortunately, the Barcode may become more visible with the added detectability.
• Identify areas where you may need to apply different strengths to your Digimarc Barcode by roughly the same criteria you use for unsharp-masking in image editing software. For example, faces will probably require a lower strength; areas with lots of detail can take a higher strength.

Examples of images well-suited for Digimarc Barcodes

Below are several images that are good candidates for Digimarc Barcodes due to these characteristics: All three images have textures that will effectively hide a Digimarc Barcode. In the beach photo, the sand, the water on the beach, and the clouds offer adequate texture. The dog, the trees, and the lawn provide texture in the dog photo. While there is an expanse of red in the photo of the girl, it's not a flat tint. The bedspread contains plenty of texture for hiding the Digimarc Barcode. The colors in all three images are predominantly in the midtones, with only some small areas of very light and very dark colors.