upload size, watermarks, theft - guidance?

[aaron emanuel litvinoff]

<p>Dear All<br>

I hope this is in the right forum. Can you guys tell me what size you upload your shots at? I've just uploaded a folder's worth of shots (please critique) and am wondering if they are too large for various reasons (900px at the longest end). Firstly, users have to scroll (at least I do on my 15'' Macbook), and obviously if one can't view the entire photo at once then that's certainly not ideal. Second, I'm guessing at the size they are, they might be vulnerable to theft; being a pessimistic devils advocate here, say if startup photo archives (or smaller fish) are prowling around for free content. Is there a way to create a smaller initial image for people to see, and the full version that they can click through to if desired, hence solving the first problem? (The 'landscape' orientated images seem to have this feature, whereas the 'portrait' orientated ones don't). I'm not saying that my images are particularly desirable, just airing a concern that I'm sure most people have at some time or another. Finally - what do you think about watermarks in the corners of photos? A necessary evil? What kind of watermark would you recommend - is mine okay?<br>

Thanks very much!</p>

[bobatkins]

<p>I don't upload anything wider than 800 pixels. There's no need to.</p>

[matthew_newton]

<p>I don't watermark mine, mostly because I feel like few if any of my images are likely to ever be stolen (cause they are oh so desirable). However, I don't upload anything bigger then 600 pixels on the long side either here or on my blog. At best that might allow you to print a low quality 4x6.</p>

[jpo3136b]

<p>One of the techniques advocated over at copyright.gov is the use of cropping, and by extension, compression. Main idea is that if you maintain, privately, a larger, more detailed image than the published photo; then, anytime there's a dispute over who owns what, you've got the master in your possession. The other photo should fit right into the master like a puzzle piece. There doesn't have to be a great deal of cropping, the master's just got to be bigger; it helps if it is more detailed.</p>

<p>For people prowling around, it's going to happen. Pretty much your only protection is going to be some counter-prowling. That can be time and resource consuming, and otherwise inefficient. A good goal is to just use the cropping and compression and some judgement about what you want to upload for public viewing. Sometimes a 600 pixel-max jpg is a good idea; it'll be presented well enough to give someone an idea of the work, look okay on a web page, but be of negligible commercial value in and of itself.</p>

<p>It's kind of like a sample square of carpet or wallpaper or the hors devours you might get at the market. It'll show what's available and still be of good quality, but you can't run a household on it.</p>

[oskar_ojala]

<p>My rule is 700 pixels max, since many laptops have 1200x800 pixel screens.</p>

[mt4x4]

<p>I go 700 pixels wide. I mostly formed this habit due to the limitation for forum postings being 700, but its also not a bad idea if you don't want anyone using your work w/o permission to keep the sizes more towards the small end.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Small, low resolution JPEGs won't prevent image theft. Even poor quality won't hinder theft. Most images on the web that are swiped for reuse appeal to viewers in ways that are inexplicable to most "expert" photographers. Photos that are either superficially pretty or humorous tend to be stolen and recycled most often. I've seen poorly exposed, out of focus images become incredibly popular for reuse simply because they appealed to someone as being humorous.</p>

<p>So the only remotely effective way to discourage unauthorized use of your photos online is to deface them with prominent copyright notices. Even small, discrete copyright notices will not discourage image theft. I've seen hundreds of popular images reused throughout the web on which either copyright notices were prominent or had been clumsily cloned out.</p>

<p>Tricks to discourage linking will not work. There are screen capture utilities that can easily be used to copy any image from any web display. If someone is determined to reuse an image they will do so.</p>

<p>If you don't want someone to reuse your images without authorization, do not post them on the web. Period. There is no other effective protection.</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>Why do you think people are going to "steal" your photos and what are they going to do with them? What's the commercial value of them to you? What's the personal value to you?<br /> <br /> I have photos all over the web that have been lifted. They haven't been lifted from my site though, they've been lifted from client sites. They have real value, i.e., I have sold them, but there isn't much I can do unless I want to stop selling them. I can't watermark them because clients don't want big watermarks in the middle of them.<br>

<br /> However, all this lifting of the photos, while it hasn't helped my business, hasn't hurt it. People still know where they come from and I still sell more of the same images, usually for print. </p>

<p>The one thing I stopped doing is posting newsworthy photos on my own site. Clients post them and they may get lifted, but it isn't happening at my site. I post them after the news value has declined.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>If you don't want someone to reuse your images without authorization, do not post them on the web.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And don't sell them either. Hide them away...</p>

[acarodp]

<p>I post photos on the web for people to see them (and give me feedback). So for me the first and foremost concern is quality of display. I don't eran money on photography, so I don't get any harm if somebody takes them, but I do understand that commercial photographers can be harmed by the fact that people can (unlawfully) obtain images for free on the net instead of paying them. I have no clue how big is the actual damage due to this, but in principle it can be there.<br>

As soon as you put your photos online, they will be downloaded. There is no escape from this, it is the purpose of having them there. So you have to strike a balance between opposed needs. I went trough a lot of trial and error, and I came to the conclusion that my personal compromise is 1000 pix on the long side, low compression rate and a discrete watermark on a corner. I had started with a smaller size (800pix), but noticed that there are a number of images of mine (<a href="../photo/8272882&size=lg">like this one</a> , which besides lacks the watermark) which need their fine texture preserved and suffer a lot when resized below 900-1000 pixel on the long side.</p>

<p>I think it is worth to spend some work on optimizing your web versions, because a badly presented image might lose a lot of impact. As I said, I changed many times, the size changed, the watermark changed, the border went through 3 versions up to now.<br>

But I would not lose sleep over "theft", I guess it is often an overestimated issue. I wonder whether for amateurs like me, it is not often a form of whishful thinking.</p>

<p>L.</p>

[valjalbertphotography]

<blockquote>

<p>One of the techniques advocated over at copyright.gov is the use of cropping, and by extension, compression. Main idea is that if you maintain, privately, a larger, more detailed image than the published photo; then, anytime there's a dispute over who owns what, you've got the master in your possession. The other photo should fit right into the master like a puzzle piece. There doesn't have to be a great deal of cropping, the master's just got to be bigger; it helps if it is more detailed.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And it's a good method. The only dowside to this method is that many photographers regard cropping as an important artistic decision. I see some people who take it too far and crop out a square of the central 2/3 of the frame, and lose a lot of the image in the process (not to mention the composition, but that's another story altogether).</p>

<p>Perhaps the new, "smart" content-based image scaling algorithms could be used in a similar manner, to "squish" certain aspects of the image.</p>

<p>I am thinking that when I set up my professional web site, flash movie format is going to be the way to go. For now, I make sure to watermark the hell out of everything that get uploaded to the web. If they want to steal the small version, they're probably not going to be able to create a large print with it, even with one of the image scaling applications such as genuine fractals. I don't see it as a huge loss.</p>

<p>Something that scared the hell out of me was when I heard a professional stock and editorial photographer advise people to never place images online if they intend to ever sell them. The reason given was that every photograph has a half-life. He reasoned that after it's been on the web for a while, no one is going to want to buy it because it won't be an original work anymore. I'm not sure if I totally buy this, but it sounds logical (if scary).</p>

[david_russell8]

<blockquote>

<p>I am thinking that when I set up my professional web site, flash movie format is going to be the way to go.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>If I recall correctly, extracting FLV video from a Flash file is a fairly trivial thing to do. Could be wrong though.</p>