Why Watermark?
I’ve been asked on multiple occasions and quite often several times a week, why don’t I watermark my images. The images I put on this website are licensed with the Creative Commons, Non-Commercial, Attribution licenses. Which basically says you can take it, use it, reuse it as long as you don’t make money with it but give me some credit as the original artist. But some of my photography does get a watermark and that is generally hosted on my Zenfolio site. These are photos I want to sell as artwork to help pay for the bills and a watermark is justified, I just wish I had a little more control on how and where the watermarks are placed.
Reasons to not watermark:
- Watermarks are annoying and distracting to the image.
- If someone wants to “steal” the image, they can likely remove the watermark anyway.
- Automatic watermarking is often not well placed on the image, so you have to spend time to manually watermark.
- The image may not hold specific value and you just want to share it.
Reasons to add watermarks:
- A watermark is a notification that the image is protected under a copyright.
- Watermarking is part of showing your brand. (Actually thats were the term came from, branding your property.)
- If someone does take the image and forward it to someone else, they will see it and go to your site based on your watermark.
- There is also a notion that adding a watermark makes you appear professional. I don’t know if I agree with this or not.
Some people may think that those that don’t watermark are saying that they don’t care about their photography and their art. Other may think that those who watermark are snobs and control freaks. Both of these may be true. But I prefer to look at it this way, when I don’t watermark I’m being generous and wanting to share what I do freely but when I do watermark I’m asking for a bit of respect and consideration.
Which camp do you fall in, do you or do not watermark and why?
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I am a top photographer in the Mocksville, North Carolina Professional Photographers guide on MarketingTool.com.
Watermarking: why watermark.
Because I like see the glow of my name invade the spaces of my selectively produced photographs. Ok I just said a lot of nonsense or horse pucky. Another lame explanation is I like to waste my time.
Ok the jig is up. The tough target approach to preserving your images. The best way to protect your images is to copyright. Watermarks and IPTC codes can be removed. Making the images small at less than 100 kb in size. There is a extreme cost to this and that is the quality of your photos suffers greatly. The problem with protecting your images is the resulting quality. Only the metadata and copyrighting appears to have no affect on quality of the image.
What are your thoughts on invisible watermarks that leave a “fingerprint” on images that can even survive pretty major image editing? These are of course purely about proving ownership.
Invisible watermarks are fine as long as you have the time and resources to pursue any offenders to your copyright. If you don’t have the resources, it’s unnecessary. Personally I accept that every image I put online will be “stolen” and used in a manner I’m too excited about. So I only put up my “seconds” or images of low enough resolution that’s not worth stealing. If someone likes one of my photos and want’s to print out an 8×10 for their wall or inspiration, that’s great.
Hi Phil, i think your topic on watermarking is an interesting one. Do we need one or not seems to be the big question. I am trying to create a portal to try and address all the issues of a photographer. I am thinking of giving the users the choice to watermark and also maybe even give them a few options on where to watermark. Please do try out my site and help me address your concerns better.
Regards,
Sriram Gopal
No watermark for me. If they want to steal it, they’ll steal it; the watermark decreases the visual appearance and hence the artistic value of a photo; and I personally prefer seeing other photographers’ work without the watermark to fully enjoy it, so I’d do the same for them.