Your name as watermark?

Rob MacKillop

Rob MacKillop

Edinburgh Correspondent
I've noticed that some images online (and some posted to this forum) have the photographer's name on the image, sometimes in a subtle way, sometimes quite the opposite. I was wondering what the general feeling here is about this practice? I guess it might stop people stealing your images and using them unattributed on other sites...

I'm not planning on doing this (actually, I'm not sure), but here is one by illustration of what I'm talking about. It was done in Lightroom4.

 
I have been known to do it a couple of times more to try it out than anything else Really it depends on what your using the photography for. A lot of "professional firms seem to do it on things like school photos these days but that could be to stop people just scanning the sample print
 
I see it more as an advertising thing that a deterrent from photo thieves......!!

For example that image you posted Rob could easily be cropped just above your name therefore rendered pointless as image protection. I also have no objections of a watermark done this way, I think it serves a better purpose to inform viewers of the photographers name or maybe www address to their website

When a watermark is posted straight through the centre of an image it totally ruins the photo and i hate this with a passion, I either totally ignore photo like this, or somteimes insult the idea of the riddiculous copyright notice lol

Saying that i used to do a subtle one like yours rob.

Daz
 
You mean people might steal things online ?????:rolleyes: ......... That's it then.

From now on I'm only going to post a "detailed description of any photos I take"....... Let them try to steal that !!!! :p

Pete
 
Better to post it quite small, with JPEG compression very high. Totally ruins it for print. Disabling the right-mouse "Save image as..." accomplishes little, since many applications and operating systems support screen grabs. Just like personal information, don't post anything on the InterWebs expecting privacy or security.

If someone downloads an image for viewing on their own machine, I am fine with that. I would get bent out of shape if someone posted one of my shots as their own. No water-marks in the past many years. I want my work to be seen at its best and my early trials of watermarks convinced me that it ruins my work.
 
if you would like to find out if any of your photos has been stolen, google has thought about it for you;

you go to google.com and click images, then simply drag your photo into the search bar then google will try to find any version of it even if it had been altered a little bit or even cropped....
 
Fidel Marcus said:
if you would like to find out if any of your photos has been stolen, google has thought about it for you;

you go to google.com and click images, then simply drag your photo into the search bar then google will try to find any version of it even if it had been altered a little bit or even cropped....
Click to expand...

That's clever ............. :)

Pete
 
Fidel Marcus said:
if you would like to find out if any of your photos has been stolen, google has thought about it for you;

you go to google.com and click images, then simply drag your photo into the search bar then google will try to find any version of it even if it had been altered a little bit or even cropped....
Click to expand...


that's a great idea
 
Interesting, Fidel. I never knew that.

I don't think anyone is making money out of my images - I'd be very surprised! I'd be flattered if anyone downloaded one to their hard drive, but if companies are using them in advertising or logos, that's a different matter.

Just wondering if any of you guys have any protection on your images? I suppose not having tags on images uploaded to Flickr and the like, would bypass the trawling tactics of certain companies?
 
www.tineye.com is another tool that is similar to how google works, one of the two will find things that the other might miss.

The best way to protect your images is how you share them, know where you are uploading to share, I use flickr they are very good about copyrights, also photobucket allows you track which websites are using the url to your images.

If you use lightroom or bridge you can embed your copyright info in your exif data (I strongly recommend it) I have lightroom set by default to attach my copyright info to every image I import, being that import is the first step to every image being copied to my computer my info is automatically embedded every single time and I don't have to be concerned about it ever.

avoid facebook and high traffic websites where masses of people are able to view your images where they are able to right click and save them.

Recently I came across a great idea from another photographer, what he did is put a huge watermark on his photos (yes this uglifies your picture) but the watermark didn't simply say his name it stated the following "go to johndoe.com to view original image" which frankly I think is a fantastic way to direct traffic to your own website where you want your content to be viewed, where you can have your images set so "right-click-save" is disabled, great way to share images on high traffic websites ie; facebook etc.

and of course you are welcome my friends :)
this is the one place where I am not concerned about how I share my images and where also I feel obliged to share any amount of helpful knowledge I can :p
 
Last edited:
As an interesting take on watermarking and image protection, there's a professional phtographer, Trey Ratcliffe, who puts all his work online in max resolution with a 'creative commons noncommercial' license. Basically he's happy for anyone to repost his images in blogs etc so long as they credit him and don't make money out of it. If someone wants an image for commercial use they have to license it.
Judging by the way he travels around the world, it doesn't seem to be doing him any harm.

Why Photographers should Stop Complaining about Copyright and Embrace Pinterest

Reverse image search was originally developed (I believe) by a company called Tineye. I don't know how the two services compare, though the google search can throw up some odd matches at times.
TinEye Reverse Image Search
 
I use watermarks occasionally but frankly, it's probably a waste of time. It'd take two minutes to clone it out of a photo for somebody so inclined. And if you made it large across the whole photo, it tends to ruin the photo. I have found my photos stolen a few times using Google's image search in the past. But it really mostly searches based on color tones, I think. so it's hit and miss.
 
Seems to be a waste of time, then. The most useful suggestion appears to be to lower the quality of the jpeg - it can still look good on the screen, but makes for a useless print. Seems a shame. If someone liked an image of mine so much that they wanted to print it, I would happy for them to do so. I just don't want companies doing it, making money out of it.
 
I've had quite some comments on watermarks on my photos in the past. And I believe the watermarks I used were quite subtle:

Repetitive by Rense Haveman, on Flickr

After the comments I started thinking about it. Why am I photographing? Well, just for fun. I like the process of making photos. AND: I show them on the internet to have some audience... I love it when people see my photos! I don't have to earn money with it. I do it just for fun, and I hope people like some of my photos. If not: it's ok, I like to make photos anyway... If they do: I hope they get some joy from it, or get inspired.

And I concluded it doesn't matter when people want to use my photos. It would be nice to let me know. If they don't, well, THEY have a problem, not me. It's quite indecent, isn't it?

So, I stopped watermarking my photos. The risk of placing things on the internet is high.... It will be stolen in time, for sure. The only way to prevent feeling miserable about it is stop feeling miserable about it. People can steel my photos freely. I hope they get some joy of it, or get inspired by the pictures I take. If not: so be it. If they do: the better....

If you don't want things to be stolen, don't place them on the web. And lock your door!
 
That's a good attitude Rense , I'm the same really in that if someone wants to show it elsewhere for their own enjoyment then great , if they are using it for commercial use then we will have words
 
Amazingly I had a couple of shots I took on the canal in Consall published in a magazine without permission. If they had asked they could have quite happily printed them for a free copy of the magazine just so I saw my pictures in print but they got them through an agency off flickr. It was pointed out to Yahoo not by myself but by somebody else the first I knew was when I got an email off flickr staff informing me that yahoo had taken them to court and I had been awarded £300 damages for the use of my photo's which is what the magazine had payed the agency for the shots I never did get a copy of the mag either as it was published in Holland and was never sold here
 
I like your attitude as well Rense. I have given images to people in the past - if it makes someone happy or is of benefit to a charity, then why not? I'm happy enough to put images on the web. I guess my pets are like my children and my photographs are like my pets. It's nice if other people appreciate them once in a while. (This applies to both pets and photographs by the way, one of the reasons we do public relations with our animals).

I don't watermark, but I do keep my images small. It probably started with the screen resolution I was using at the time and I never got around to making them larger. I think I would be upset if I found someone was claiming one of my photographs as their own, but then any dishonesty upsets me. There are far worse things going on with regard to the internet though, so yes... it is their problem and not mine :)
 
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