Comments on: Watermarks: Protecting Your Images, or Damaging Your Business?

By: Rachael Taylor

Rachael Taylor — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 16:49:51 +0000

Thank you for this. I’m guilty of a large watermark on my photos as we’re a small business (a young farm) and I want people to know where these images are coming from.

I’m going to use the same technique as Robert Catto as I think it’s perfectly lovely. Thank you again.

By: Jeremy Cook

Jeremy Cook — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 03:14:00 +0000

I’ve been starting to watermark my images using phatch. Really great tool for this, but I try to keep it subtle while referencing my site if someone wants more info.

By: Henry Rivers

Henry Rivers — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 12:50:31 +0000

Couldn’t agree more with your watermarking comment.

So often now they are edited out anyway. If you are going to use a watermark make you use a small one and tile it across the image … this will make it much harder to remove.

an example of a bad watermark – http://ingimage.com/imagedetails/42016523_extInt0/02E93536-Ingimage-Businesspeople-over-an-empty-white-board.html

By: Bálint Gilicze

Bálint Gilicze — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:48:29 +0000

I have been hesitating on the question of using watermarks for a long time, and finally I decided to use a subtle one. The reason was the story of one particular photo of Budapest with floating ice on the Danube. Someone grabbed the image from the site of the photographer and put it on some Facebook page. The photo got more than 10000 likes in days. It wasn’t watermarked. Because of it’s exceptional beauty some online news sites wanted to use it but couldn’t find the photographer.
Then, the ice was gone, and the damage done. The photographer guy found the FB page later and asked the owner to display his name. But the actuality of the photo had already faded, so, no income this time.
The moral of the tale is that you cannot really fight image stealing, but with some watermarking you can profit from the spreading effect of social sites like Facebook, Tumblr or Pinterest.

By: Sydney Alicia

Sydney Alicia — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:58:47 +0000

Overly watermarked images appear extremely unprofessional and amateurish. A copyright and watermark should identify the photographer, not completely ruin the photo. Having worked with many professional photographers, many don’t watermark at all…and if they do, the watermarks are subtle and professional, without obstructing the image.

By: Arun

Arun — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 10:09:04 +0000

Not having a copyright watermark may help sharing by some margin, but has lots of disadvantages especially if you use a blog or website to publish them. One is obvious as Grover said, some one could copy them. Another is hardlinking. Other people could just hard link your image url in their websites, so all the big traffic due to image size gets sucked out of your account… and no body will know.

But if you add a small watermark – not that big or too loud, just a small one at the bottom which indicates you, your blog or your website, any sane person would hesitate to either copy or hardlink your images. May be they will use it for a presentation or a one occasion use, but not definitely on a place where people will see it indefinitely.

Creating a watermark is also not that technical anymore, thanks to free tools like Gimp and even the non-free photoshop -
http://www.skipser.com/p/2/p/how-to-watermark-photos-using-gimp.html

By: jennifer

jennifer — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 04:41:54 +0000

I somewhat agree. I’ve always love photography & I’ve never had a problem spending serious cash for it. I spent $8,000 for my wedding pictures. It took 6 weeks for her to put some on the website (which of course I couldnt right click & save) & three months for me to get an actual CD of all my pictures. Once I got my CD she was so worried about which ones I would put on FB & she wanted me to put pictures only with watermarks on my FB. It was such a turn-off. I will never go to her again or anyone thats watermark crazy.

By: Copyright and sharing in the context of the Internet

[...] a survey of professional photo buyers, PhotoShelter found that “an overwhelming majority of them stated that an image with a prominent watermark is [...]

By: Jodie Platz

Jodie Platz — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:02:32 +0000

The problem I have when watermarking my photos is that no matter where I put it the fans that take my photos (of the band 100 Monkeys) will always find a way to get around it… I think I’m going to give up and go back to the minimalist approach that I used to employ. If that’s what the fans want, I suppose that’s what I should give to them — save THEM and ME some work!

By: aheneghana

aheneghana — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 03:20:00 +0000

Nothing is as frustrating as coming across a website finding someone has added your hard earned photography to his site, altered with photoshop, yet distinctly recognizable. Watermarking thought would stop pirates, yet turns off others who would like to see unbiased photography.Consider registering as advised. Thanks for info africasiaeuro.com/wordpress