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.

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'm actually working on it....should be finished sometime in the next few months hopefully.

Thanks, Will!

On G+ I tend to post images in Communities. Like most sites, if you comment on others work, they are more likely to comment on yours. G+ also has Circles, which are groups of contacts, which is a good way of finding people with similar interests. When I joined G+ another photographer shared a circle he had built up of mainly good photographers, and it's grown from there. Have a look at this link for a more detailed explanation.

As far as printers go, in the UK I use Loxley Colour, or for cheaper prints D S Colour Labs. I only use DS Colour Labs if I have the print sent to me first, as I have had the occasional one come out with the colour a bit wrong; I have had two mono prints from them with a colour cast. In the States I use a company in Seattle, The Color Group.

I find the way browsers behave in Windows 8 really annoying, and I have IE, Chrome and Firefox installed; they all seem to behave strangely, ie scrolling sometimes doesn't work on the touch-pad and I have to use the touchscreen. While trying to edit an email in my browser I often get a hand appearing instead of a cursor and it won't let me select any text, but just scrolls the page. I try to scroll the page and it selects text instead....it's very erratic.

The computer does boot up really fast, but that's probably down to the SSD as much as the operating system. I'll try installing the Start button, as one of the things that really annoys me is there is no easy way to navigate to some functions (ie Control Panel) without installing a shortcut on the desktop. I have the task bar set up to access often used programs and the browsers. I find, however, that the touchscreen functions don't always do what you want, and a wrong key press on the keyboard or accidental touch of the screen will often switch it out of desktop view.

I was hoping the touchscreen with the stylus would be useful in editing images, but without the keyboard attached half the menus in CS6 and Lightroom can't be used (I have yet to find a way to open images from Lightroom in CS6 using the stylus), and with the keyboard attached the touchscreen is much harder to use than the mouse for fine work, ie cloning, selecting areas of an image, or using a brush, as the keyboard gets in the way of using the stylus efficiently.

Perhaps some of my problems are due to lack of familiarity, but I've been using Windows since it's inception, and I think I am pretty proficient with computers. I find Windows 8 a really clunky and non-intuitive OS.

I find G+ great for getting exposure. My images on there generally tend to get more attention than they do on Flickr, which has lead to some print sales. I also find the groups (or communities) have a lot more going on in them than most of the ones on Flickr, along with more links to interesting stuff outside the site. It's sort of like a cross between Facebook and Flickr, but unlike Facebook, it doesn't strip the exif from your images.

smc-A 50mm f1.4 @ f1.8

Anyone else using this? I don't like it. As someone who has used Windows since it's inception (going right back to DOS),I have to say that Windows 8 is by far the worst version yet. The touch screen stuff is nice in theory, but sometimes you just can't get anything to work, and then find you have to use some stupid touch gesture to make the "$%^&&@ computer do what you want. And then it doesn't always work. Sometimes you'll be on the internet and then another screen pops up, because you accidentally pressed a key or touched the wrong part of the screen, having no idea that this was a shortcut to some application you didn't even know was on your computer. Unless Microsoft sort this out soon I will be moving to Apple, a move I have never even considered before, as I don't like the ethos or business practices of the company. However, I would not recommend Windows 8 to anybody. It's like a really bad version of a 1990's mobile phone OS.

Just downloaded that plugin, and it can decompose to YCbCr, just what I needed, I'll try it out!