To watermark or not to watermark for online posting of your images

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

As I'm a beneficiary of the free software movement and organisations like Gutenberg, I take the simplistic view that I should give back as well.

If I put something on the web, anyone who wants it may take it, provided only that they say "thank you". After all, "manners maketh man". :angel:

 

[Frank Petronio]

No I don't watermark - I find it intrusive, and so would my target audience.

Instead, I post images no more than about 800 px along the long edge - which is far too small to allow a sharp print larger than 4 inches! If it's being used on the web without my permission, good luck to them - when I encounter anyone doing that, rather than getting on my high horse, I simply ask them for an acknowledgement and a link to my website.

What I don't get is photographers who carelessly allow large images into the wild. If you Google many well-known photographers, you can often find huge files. For example, the Magnum photographer Lise Sarfati, has several, including my favourite image of hers, as a massive 14 MP file - it's the very first image! Granted it's probably not the photographers directly at fault but their agents or a gallery, but all it'd take them is just a few seconds to search and check...

Anyone want any Cartier-Bresson's to hang on their wall? Though I'm sure you wouldn't print them, being respectful of others' work...

While 14mp seems excessive, as well as a bandwidth hog, I do 2048-pixel jpgs without watermarks on my website. Most of the commercial photographers using A Photo Folio websites do similarly. Same for an awful lot of successful, working photographers. Cruise around and check out the top (living, working) people with modern websites and nearly all are showing larger images.

You want to appeal to real photo buyers at ad agencies, so having a large, clear image on your website makes it easy for them to "see" your work and its quality. Ideally you want art directors to use your images in the comps they present to clients for advertisements, and providing a decent sized image makes for a better comp that is more likely to be sold. No decent professional ad agency or corporation is going to risk stealing an image. When it does happen, once in a very rare while, then it's a great payday for the aggrieved photographer who will benefit from a generous settlement.

Yes, malicious amateurs, Third World hacks, and silly children will steal images. Also art directors, especially mediocre ones, will sometimes use your images as "inspiration" for another photographer to copy. And other bad things happen as well.... But in general the benefits of getting a good advertising job outweigh the negatives of some petty rip-offs.

Frankly the photographers who haven't updated their sites in years and still have small images and watermarks come off looking like amateurs or paranoid. Even a small image can be ripped off, any watermark can be removed, so it's a moot point. Decide whether you want to be in the marketplace or not and then appeal to your real customers... 99.9% of the people out there are good and decent and they're your audience... not the thieves.

 

[-doomed-]

I have my copyright info imbedded into my files. A sig can easily be photoshopped away. And depending on the sig, it could distract the viewer.

I do this, though if were being honest, someone can still strip that info from the file if they want to steal the photo.
Point is, if someone wants to steal anything badly enough -- they will.

 

[RichC]

While 14mp seems excessive, as well as a bandwidth hog, I do 2048-pixel jpgs without watermarks on my website ... You want to appeal to real photo buyers at ad agencies, so having a large, clear image on your website makes it easy for them to "see" your work and its quality.

Frankly the photographers who haven't updated their sites in years and still have small images and watermarks come off looking like amateurs or paranoid.

That makes perfect sense.

My bag is contemporary art photography, and the norm in our niche is not to allow large images: not because there's concern about rights (which as you say is a non-problem in actuality) but because we want people to see the images as they're intended - in a gallery or book. Images need only to be large enough to act as "tasters".

In any serious photographic arena, putting watermarks on images comes over as amateurish...

 

[Sparrow]

In my professional life (surface design mostly) I always reasoned that anyone coping my published work were a minimum of six months behind so they were irrelevant anyway. and that being so why wast my time trying to stop them?

 

[Frank Petronio]

I have to admit that it's frustrating not to find large jpgs online for most of the late, great art photographers. In a perverse sense, the very greatest are hardly represented online and when they are it's a puny little jpg on artnet.

 

[RichC]

I have to admit that it's frustrating not to find large jpgs online for most of the late, great art photographers. In a perverse sense, the very greatest are hardly represented online and when they are it's a puny little jpg on artnet.

That's true. One day there will be online virtual-reality museums we'll be able to wander around ...

 

[nongfuspring]

Watermarks are never a good idea. They're distracting, tacky and tend to make photographers look hubristic. Generally it's also a very poor way to protect your images, you'd have to ruin your image completely before I wouldn't be able to edit it out.

If anyone is worried about having their photos stolen without attribution for commercial purposes then just downsize them to a web friendly size (which they should be anyway) and/or implant EXIF copyright tags into the metadata. You can also set up RSS notification whenever someone reposts your file elsewhere online.

I can't help but feel this attitude towards watermarking is a symptom of a pretty old fashioned idea of what photography is. IMO photographers should really embrace reblogging and appropriation and put up images that are in a format that support that use. If anyone wants to know who you are then a quick google image search will bring up your portfolio/flickr.

 

[f16sunshine]

I lock my front door at night.
It's a glass door and even though double paned, it would be very easy to break the glass and unlock the door by reaching in.
Still it makes me feel better to lock it at night and adds one more layer of deterrent to get past…. to my waiting can of bear spray :angel:
If watermarking makes you feel better about posting images by adding an extra layer of deterrent go for it. Just remember it's only a glass door.

 

[ped]

I find it very tacky when someone puts 'photgraphy' after their name. I know it's a photograph.

 

[Red Robin]

Don't anymore. Back in the day there were dreams of someone actually wanting to publish one of my efforts, but one does get older, perhaps wiser. Realization that a camera in my hands is only an expensive piece of hobby hardware. Then again. .. ... maybe someone might see one of my efforts ---post process it correctly publish it in a BIG-TIME magazine------I sue---WIN--- get a "large cash award". Yeah! What then? What then?

 

[Chris101]

I find it very tacky when someone puts 'photgraphy' after their name. I know it's a photograph.

Unless they are a photo-realistic painter. Then they would put "painting" after their name.

 

[ped]

Unless they are a photo-realistic painter. Then they would put "painting" after their name.

Yeah. Also one can be misled by good mosaic skills

 

[Michael Markey]

Makes little difference from what photographers tell me.
They`ve found pictures taken from the web complete with watermarks ,framed and hanging on the wall.

 

[jwc57]

I have in the past. I stopped since I believed it didn't make a difference--honestly based on what photographers here have said. I've since found out it does make a difference.

I'm revisiting the issue.

 

[Stdon]

Most here are into photography but try to make a living at it and you may think differently especially after having 3 images stolen, yes stolen. I've had 3 images stolen by 2 major publications. I take a 3 tiered approach. I watermark everything tastefully, exif info. is intact and once a month I register everything with the U.S. Copyright office. Learning from the past if there is no watermark the thief can fake "well I didn't know". If the thief tries to or erases the watermark or exif that denotes intent to steal and there is no defense for that. Automatic they lose image fees, court costs and law firm fees.
And please spare me the artist angst angle. Artists have been "watermarking" for centuries and their work has been and is quite a bit more important than anything anyone here produces.
Flame suit on and shields up.

 

[Cyriljay]

I used to put the watermarks but do not use them any more as I know it is just a matter of few seconds to remove it by any one who wants to do it . So I don't care Now .

 

[punkromance]

Nope. It looks obnoxious and ruins the image, no matter how small you have it. More often than not it's in some garish typeface too.

My stuff turns up all over the web, often with no credit or referral back to me. That's life these days.

 

[Ronald M]

I do not post pics I care about. Steal them if you want . The one I do post are low rez & small size which makes them worthless for commercial purposes.

A small watermark in the corner will be cloned over or cropped off if someone really wants it

 

[biomed]

IMHO water marks/text can spoil an otherwise outstanding image. I prefer to put any annotation/signature in a border to the lower right of the image. I have seen some watermarks that are not too objectionable, but I prefer nothing within the image area.

Mike