Sweet Stuff Pin Up

it's a shame you ruin all your images with that big ass copyright logo across them all.

if you worried about theft you shouldn't post them because thieves find a way... 

it's like one of the first rules in photography, the cardinal rule is people want to see the image 9 times out of ten noone cares enough to steal it.

this is something from a blog I had to read when I was earning my BFA in photography, it was required reading and it makes a lot of sense.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. Watermarks Are Ugly

Plain and simple. You have just ruined your perfectly good photograph and made it a crap one by stamping your name all over it. You might think it looks great because it's got your name and beautifully designed logo on it but when I view it all I can see is the watermark. My only reaction to a watermarked image is 'look at that ugly watermark' and I move on to the next image.

 

This may just be a personal response but I know I'm not alone in this thinking.

 

2. Watermarking Does Not Prevent Image Theft

If you want to avoid people stealing your work, don't post it on the internet. Ever. That's the only way of preventing your work from being downloaded without your consent. In the article 'I Can Remove Your Watermark With No Problem', photographer RC Concepcion wrote that of his images that were stolen, all of them were watermarked. He no longer watermarks his work.

 

Image theft is not done by commercial business with ethics (there are some exceptions though, read TOI). It is done by peers and non-photographers who want a nice desktop background or perhaps take the credit of a talent that he/she do not possess.

 

3. Did You Pay For The Software That Created Your Watermark?

  The audacity of some photographers watermarking their work with pirated software is shocking. They post up their image with a watermark created by their stolen software, expecting people to respect their hard work by not stealing their image. I wonder how many of these people bother to read and remember the names of the developers in the credits when they open up their pirated copy of Lightroom or Photoshop.

 

4. I Can Clone Out Your Watermark

And I can do it really easily. If your watermark really annoys me, some simple cloning will eliminate it (not just Photoshop, but any simple editing software has cloning ability). Even an 'average' computer user know how to clone these days.

 

5. Do I Care Anyway?

  Even people who can't clone will download your image if they like it enough, watermark or no watermark. Watermarking doesn't physically prevent people from taking your image. And if you've disabled right-click on your website, there are ways to retrieve the full resolution of the uploaded image [wont share the trick here, but may discuss in personal posts]

 

6. What Are You Expecting In Return?

  I wonder what people who watermark their work are expecting from the image thieves. Now they know who the photographer is will they send them an email thanking them for their hard work? More than likely they'll do a search on the internet for the photographer to find more of their images to download! Perhaps you think someone will buy your work, in which case you can direct them to your online store or portfolio, or even the stock library you contribute to.

 

7. Work So Unoriginal You Have To Remind Us Who Took It

In my survey this was the single biggest reason for watermarking: to remind us who took the photograph. I have difficulty with this argument on two levels.

 

Firstly, people post their images up via flickr, G+, Facebook, 500px or some other website within their account that contains their name. I don't need to read your name on your photograph because you posted it to your wall, which has your name on it.

 

Secondly, I'm a strong believer in developing one’s own style. The greatest photographers are instantly recognizable. Henri Cartier-Bresson is perhaps best known for ten infamous images, but even the ones you've never seen before are still recognizable as his and that's because he developed his own style. I may be wrong but I don't ever remember him stamping 'HCB' all over his images.

 

8. Ego Trip

I believe some photographers only put watermarks on their work so they can see their name in lights. They spend more time creating fancy watermarks than they do straightening their horizons or looking to develop their own style.

 

 

Conclusion The fact is we upload and share our work on the internet so we should expect image theft whether we like it or not. However our images are more likely to be stolen by someone wanting to post on their blogs/sites as opposed to commercial theft, so don't ruin the moment captured by adding artificial noise to it. It's ugly and distracting and does no favours to the aestethics.

Ultimately we should be striving for our work to be so unique and individual that when someone sees it, they recognize our style immediately.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All I'm saying is don't ruin your beautiful works of art with ugly watermarks. 

in the end I know your going to do what you want to do, but your work is amazing you should want to share it as it is.

if your really worried about image theft post low res images and then have people pay for the high res.