watermarking

have the opportunity to have a web site so have looked at watermarking. the problem is where to put it, have looked and quite a few that go across the middle of the image but even semi transparent it spoils the view of the image completely. what would be the best alternative, if there is one?

I put mine in the bottom corner which prevents a lot of reuse and doesn't impact the image most of the time. Depends what you are shooting, the black bar at the bottom with a watermark doesn't impact on the image...

Unfortunately the more subtle and out of the way it is the less point there is in having one..you'll soon see everyone watermarking on websites etc so if you're adding it for "image protection" you'll have to compromise in that it will, to some, affect the image

Simon

Watermarks anywhere on an image are a loathsome, pointless intrusion. Why anyone would want to deface and spoil their work with such an irritating distraction is beyond understanding. If there is a desire to protect copyright, then display small well-compressed Jpegs to make them difficult to scale up for printing or full-screen viewing. If a file is big enough (and good enough) to be worth stealing, the determined hacker will remove any watermark by using PS or its equivalent, and trying to hide it in a corner simply makes his editing easier.

By now you might have guessed that I'm none too keen on watermarks.

Philip

A friend who is a professional uses a digital watermark. You can view his photos beif you try to copy or print them they come out like a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces mixed up.

Hi Philip,

To give you an idea why...it's not particuarly about hackers, the coming changes to UK Copyright law are becoming the driving force.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22337406

I must admit, that whilst watermarks do prove a little annoying sometimes, personally I can see past them and still fully appreciate an excellent image...very small highly compressed images are not the way to go for me, people are using increasingly large monitors which makes such small images almost unviewable

Simon

I use a utility to reduce the size of images and watermark them in the bottom corner.

It's a freebie from the web available here if you want to try it.

If you're doing a web site you need to decide how big the image needs to be. Personally I use Picassa for my images and just point people there via link, like this page.

thanks for the replies and suggestions, it seems it is a case of you cannot please everybody , i personally think a great big thing across the middle of the image looks terrible no matter how translucent it is, i suppose low resolution files around 72ppi would be a reasonable deterent, it seems to be the norm with most of the tutorials etc i have seen and it strikes me the watermark ends up more an advert than protection.
again thanks fo the help

MrB and I are genuinely not the same person. Honest

But once again I highly agree with his view.

I see many images posted in this forum and ruined by an ugly carbuncle. Here's an example from just now.

https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/just-testing-my-haida-10-stop-nd-filter-4...


If you want to advertise, the add a black bar at the bottom and put your details on that.

Frankly I think it's more important to cater for the legitimate people who might want to buy your work rather than defacing every image you publish with a hideous water mark to try in vain to protect it against the odd chance someone might want to steal it.


Look at it this way.... if someone steals your work then count yourself fortunate that you're producing something worth stealing. Most people can't. If it's stolen by some schoolboy then who cares. If it's stolen by some company with some wealth then let them steal it and sue them. And then work out a deal with them to use more of your images legitimately.

There are too many out there who will try to steal an image. I will put a very obvious watermark on most of my images and also a couple of small hidden ones which blend in and will not always be obvious even when printed at A4 but close inspection can bring them out.

I have an acquaintance who turns over a large amount each year from selling his prints - some sell at £500 each. He spends large amounts travelling the world for new images and needs to protect his revenue.

All of his online images have a very large see through watermark using a relief and shadow style right across the middle of every picture. His style does detract from the image but it does allow you to see the full image and if anyone was to download, upscale and try to clean the image it would be a long laborious process and would probably not work.

Do you know which program this is, Gwyn? I like the sound of that. I'm considering Digimarc at the moment, as I am getting really hacked off with finding my images being used without permission. I've also spent a lot of time recently issuing take-down orders against Tumblr, as I have found a lot of my images shared there (without permission). Although the links to Flickr usually remains intact, I have found multiple cases where it does not, and I've yet to see any benefit whatsoever from having my images shared on Tumblr. Strangely, however, I did get a print order recently from someone seeing an image of mine on a website that did not have permission to use it. The owner of the website 'fessed up to where he'd got the image from and I sold a large print as a result... A bizarre case of copyright infringement leading to a sale that would not have happened otherwise.

At the moment I am visibly watermarking anything I put on Facebook, as they strip the exif.

I don't see a watermark on many of your images, Jon. I don't mind watermarks that are tasteful and not plastered across the middle of the shot (as with yours and Gary's). It's the amateurish looking ones that bother me. And the ones that grace not-so-brilliant shots. Seriously chaps, no one's going to want to steal your OOF shot of a bird table etc...

So all someone has to do is press ALT-'Print Screen' and they've copied the photo and bypassed the digital watermark.

Yeah that always cracks me up

I've only started watermarking recently, due to finding a lot of my images being being reproduced and used without my permission. It's images shared from Flickr to Tumblr that seem to generate the most instances of people then copying them, stripping the exif and using them; Tumblr is evidently inhabited by an inordinate amount of people who think nothing of stealing images. So far I've issued a dozen or so take-down notices to Tumblr. Of course, anyone can print the screen, so I think visible watermarks provide at least some protection, and in the case of Facebook are the only thing identifying you as the copyright holder.