Watermarking Assets

A watermark is a dynamic, partially customizable text that is applied as an overlay on an uploaded Asset. Applying watermark on Assets helps ensure that Assets are not easily shared, copied, downloaded, altered, or used without permission.

Important: Before you can use the watermark feature, you must first enable the Allow Assets to have watermark protection setting in Gear Wheel Gear Wheel > Settings.

Format

The watermark overlay consists of:
  • Custom text: It refers to optional, customizable alphanumeric text.
  • User ID or User Email Address: You can choose to use either the user ID or the email address of the user viewing the Asset.
    Note: The default setting is user ID.
  • View date: It refers to the date when the Asset is viewed.
    Format: YYYY-MM-DD
    Note: This may not always reflect the view date. See Watermark Caching Mechanism for more information.

The structure of the watermark is Custom Text - User ID or User Email address - View date.

If no custom text is specified, the default watermark is used.

Example

Default watermark User Id: 27 - 2022-08-17
Watermark with user ID and custom text CONFIDENTIAL - User Id: 27 - 2022-08-17
Watermark with user email address and custom text CONFIDENTIAL - Email: emailaddress@company.com - 2022-08-17

Watermark Protection on Previews and Thumbnails

To indicate watermark protection, aside from the watermark overlay on the Asset, an icon overlay Watermark Symbol is also applied on the Asset's previews and thumbnails, which are also blurred. Locations include:
  • Activity Feeds
  • Asset Info page
  • Edit File dialog box
  • Feedback Summaries
  • Project Assets tab
  • Proofing Workspace
  • Review Info / Review Chain Side Panel
  • Review notification emails
  • Reviews Screen
  • Review Builder
  • Review Chain palette

Watermark Caching Mechanism

Whenever you view an Asset that has watermarked applied, it is cached for 24 hours, which prevents the system from generating new watermark on the same Asset.

For example if you viewed the Asset on March 23 at 23:00, then accessed the same Asset on March 24 at 2:00, the same watermark date of March 23 will display because the 24-hour caching mechanism is still in effect.

ConceptShare uses this caching mechanism to minimize the drain on system resources, and avoid too many transactions when generating watermark, (or when accessing any protected Asset), which could impact ConceptShare's performance.

Limitations

  • Watermarking is available for all supported file formats, except audio and web content capture.

  • Watermark text cannot be applied on previously uploaded Assets.

    If you want to watermark an existing Asset, you need to delete the original Asset, and reupload the Asset with the watermark option selected.

  • When watermark protection is enabled on an Asset, the option to download the original version of the Asset is automatically disabled.
    Note: Watermarked Assets are non-downloadable.
  • If a watermark is not applied when versioning an Asset, there is no correction available. Either delete the full Asset stack with feedback, or version the Asset again; the previous version will not be watermarked when viewed.
  • When configuring Reviews in Jira, watermark settings, even if enabled, are not visible/usable in the Jira integration.