To watermark or not to watermark?

<p>I know some people watermark their photos and others do not. My question is, should you watermark photos? If you should when should you watermark them?<br>

I'm just curious. I watermark some of mine when I end up posting them on my blog or elsewhere, but I wasn't sure if it's really necessary. Thanks!</p>

<p>if you're serious about your work on photography, you sould watermark your photos...<br>

I place a watermark on them, and fill my copyright info on the metadata of the file and upload only at 72dpi at a max of 750pixels</p>

<p>While the argument of not bothering because people can and will remove them by cropping them out, etc, is valid, what you're missing out on by not bothering are all the people who do leave them on. Having a watermarked photo as someone's Facebook profile photo, or used in other ways, is great advertising for you.</p>

<p>I've worked in digital information with online classes and e-books and graphics several years now, and at work we try to boil down the piracy issue to ensure that people are not just paying for our information and digital products, which are easy to pirate, cheap, and many argue should be free, but paying for us, meaning they have access to our skills by being able to ask questions or have us take their photos or design custom graphics. We still charge for the honest people, and fight blatant piracy, but we spend more time designing our services to include things that cannot be pirated so someone wants to pay for the full version of what we offer.</p>

<p>There is a huge shift in the digital community over these types of rights, and the argument is far from solved, in fact far from even being fully explored to even begin to formulate solutions. I watermark my images because, as the poster said, you need to if you're serious about it, and you need to for the "free" advertising. You have to at least make some sort of effort to protect yourself, but there are more issues than just that.</p>

<p>I didn't WM for a very long time, however, because it was one extra and tedious step. Google the tutorials for watermarking in Lightroom (using the Mogrify plug in or a PS droplet), or a PS action if you don't use LR, and it becomes so easy it's silly not to do it! In LR, mine are marked as I export them to JPEG format, and I have different expport presets to copyrigth and resize them for my blog, full size with small logo jpegs for print or digital negative delivery, etc. that Export dialog in LR has a lot of powerful options.</p>

<p>Amanda,<br>

I put contact info in the borders of the <a href="../photodb/member-photos?user_id=215599">images I publish</a> .</p>

<p>This facilitates potential photo buyers calling or e-mailing me about usage rights. I get calls and-emails quite frequently about this and sell rights to many of my images.</p>

<p>No contact info, no sales.</p>

<p>A big © watermark across the image itself might discourage others from using an image without permission, but that mark itself does not promote the sale of rights.</p>

 

<p>I put an image ID# along with copyright info and contact info in a corner of the images I post on my site. I do this for the same reasons JH does and get the same results. A lot of the book publishers I work with keep their own library of low res images from a variety of sources and with my contact info on the pics I know they'll be able to find me when they need to request high-res versions.<br /> <br /> Since I want editors and photo researchers to be able to see the content of my images I don't do big watermarks that obscure big parts of the image. For me this is a pure business decision simply because this works best for me and my situation.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>upload only at 72dpi</p>

</blockquote>

<p>One more time..."dpi" has no affect on images displayed on a monitor. It's completely irrelevant.</p>

<p>I started watermarking recently, but images that are sold aren't, so there's often copies floating around on the internet that won't be. In the end, there isn't that much impact because of that.</p>

<p>Yes, yes, and yes. But, it's not just "to watermark" or "not to watermark." There's also a question of <em>how</em> .<br>

<br /> When I first started adding WM's, I made them far too large and annoying, centered in the middle of the photo. I look back at those and cringe. Now, whenever posting on the web, I simply put © and my name in the bottom left or right corner depending on the image (see below). Like Mauro, I also limit the size of the images posted online so that they can't be printed at any significant size.<br>

<br /> I'm not so concerned with random people who might print out a 4x6 to stick on their bulletin board at work. I'm more concerned with corporate entities who would use my work for advertising purposes without permission. The copyright mark is at least one barrier even if it isn't foolproof.<br>

<br /> I don't put contact info, because my name is rather rare. If you Google me, my website pops up first and all the pages having anything to do with photography include my full contact info.</p>

<p><img src="http://andreanay.zenfolio.com/img/v7/p565546348-2.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="286" /></p>

<p>Andrea:<br /> <br /> I'd consider adding a url or e-mail to your watermark. The easier you make it for people to find you, the more likely they are to contact you. I know it sounds borderline insane but for some people one extra step (i.e. googling instead of simply having the e-mail addy at hand) is one too many...<br /> <br /> If there's one thing I've learned from doing this for way too long it's that the easier you make it for your clients/customers to buy/license from you - the higher the chance that they'll actually do so.</p>

<p>Along with watermarking, one other reminder about this is to upload your photos to the copyright office. Although there is a fee and a long period to wait on an application, it will protect your images. go to <a href="http://www.copyright.gov">www.copyright.gov</a> </p>

<p> . . . . and as to the argument against WMs because people may remove them, my father always told me that locks are intended to keep honest people out. My estimation is that most honest folks won't remove the WM. David</p>