Emboss for Watermark; Not Functioning

[Ron P.]

I've noticed that the Emboss function in the Watermarking does not work. To replicate, here are the steps;

1. Open an image in PSP X2.
2. Using the Learning Center, click on Text and Graphics>Add Watermark.
3. In the Visible Watermark dialog window, browse to the image you wish to use as your watermark. In my case I'm using the Lynda.com exercise files, watermark.jpg (image to place watermark on), copy.jpg and ldc.bmp (images to use as watermarks).
4. Increase the Emboss, by moving the slider to the right.

It makes no difference how much Emboss, it is not applied to the image. The size, opacity and placement seem to work.

I've removed and reinstalled the update, then the entire program, both having no affect on this.

Has anyone else experienced this? If so were you able to get it working, and how?

Screen Shot:

[suzshook]

I see a change when I increase the Emboss slider, using that same image as the watermark. It's easier to see the effect of the Embossing if the Opacity slider is increased as well. Suz

[Ron P.]

I can slide the emboss slider to 100 and the opacity to 100 or down as in the video and there is no noticeable change...

[peerrepe]

I can slide the emboss slider to 100 and the opacity to 100 or down as in the video and there is no noticeable change...

Hi,

I've just bought PSP X2 and I'm having this exact same problem. I found this forum while searching the web for this symptom.

I opened a question on Corel Customer Support describing the problem and the answer had nothing to do with VISIBLE watermarks but rather with DIGITAL watermarks.

Do they ever read the question before responding them?

Cheers,
Paulo

[Tim Morrison]

A great deal depends on the colour of the image or text used as the watermark.
As an example I used this image as a watermark -

(The original is a PSPIMAGE file with black, white and assorted grey objects on a transparent background).

When I apply this to an image, with Opacity = 50 and Emboss = 50, I get this -

Two things are apparent -
1. Black objects don't emboss at all.
2. The background doesn't show much through black or white images.
So it seems that the best colour for the source image is mid-grey.

The embossing effect works by applying a darker shade to the bottom right and a lighter shade to the top left. You can see this on the white square, which has a shaded bottom right, but no top left highlight. Perfectly reasonable in one way because there is nothing lighter than white to use there. The black object understandably has no shadow side, but strangely has no highlight either. Seems to be a bug.
It's not so reasonable in another way that white objects have no highlights and black objects have no shadows, because the objects are at 50% opacity. There is nothing lighter than white, but there are shades lighter than blend of the background and 50% opacity white; unless the background is white. Similarly with black. There will be shades darker than 50% black, unless the background is black.

[peerrepe]

Hi,

Thanks for your update. I'll try with grey images.
But just a side note, the Lynda.com tutorial uses a black text (a copyright 2007) on a white background in one of its examples of embosing.
Which surprised me since I would expect that the embossing would only occurr at the borders of a solid white backgrounded jpg image.

Regards,
Paulo