Watermarking an image - what is your view

[Brian500au]

I know we have discussed this before (back in 2012 i think) but what is your view on watermarking an image before it is displayed? In my own case, when I first started I had no idea how to watermark so I did not - but as time went by I thought of it as a good marketing tool - so I created a sig (watermark) on my images.

The biggest disadvantage I find now is I do not enter many (read very few) Ausphoto competitions because it means going back into photoshop and removing the water mark (and therefore losing the post photoshop LR edits). Of course I could save a shot with and without the watermark but I never think about a comp at the time of editing so never do this.

I also believe if you want to mass load up to some stock image sites your images cannot be watermarked - therefore I never pursue this idea as it is just too much work to remove existing watermarks.

From a marketing point of view I still like it. I am fairly new to Instagram but feel this is another marketing tool and by signing my photos I am putting my name out there. Would we expect an artist never to sign their painting?

What do others think of this? I am in two minds going forward and could real do with some convincing either way.

[ameerat42]

Me, I'm not for it, but for no particularly good reason.

So, if you do have one, go ahead. I'd only say that for aesthetics, don't make it
a lumbering big one.

The comp problem: I do not know your workflow, but for me it's...
Normal sized final file > small sized final file (ie, re-sampled to fit here).

If yours is similar, then you'd only have to resize a copy of your first of
these two files and paste all or a bit of it over the WMk to be masked.

[Gazza]

Interesting topic. I'm glad you've made it resurface again -



I'm not dead against watermarks, I just rather they weren't there.
I have used them myself occasionally(once?), only for effect though. (That artistic sig thing you mentioned)

There are some very tasteful creations out there and there's also a lot of woeful over-the-top and overbearing creations as well.
I'm not here to view an image with self-promoting writing scrawled across the middle of the frame. With those, I simply move on ₍()₎ (have I ever commented on one of your images? )

BTW, I think you may be going about your process ass-about-face...
Would it not be a better idea to keep/store your good, full sized, edited, finished copy, and then re-size, deface () add your mark before posting out on the WWW?
That Sig I once used is stored on OneDrive. I wrote a quick action in PS which crabs that *.png as a new layer and has the 'free transform' ready and set to go. 1 click, hey presto!

[ameerat42]

Right, Gazza! I meant that - WMk only the very last one.

[Tannin]

Are you watermarking to prevent unauthorised use? (It is only a little more secure than not watermarking, but of some help.)

Or are you watermarking to promote your brand? If so, are you (a) a professional (most people aren't); (b) thinking about becoming a professional (hardly anyone ever actually becomes one, they just think about it); (c) just very confused; or (d) other?

You would fit into category (d) I reckon, Kel.

I used to watermark everything. I did it the easy way: no mucking about with Photoshop, I had (still have) a dedicated little watermarking program. Simply feed it your desired output image in JPG form, it produces a watermarked version of it to your specifications. (And, contrary to popular mythology, a single extra JPG generation in the image processing chain is neither here nor there. In most cases you can't tell the two images apart except by careful side-by-side comparison. The key, of course, is to only do it once. Multiple generations will soon degrade the image significantly, but you can nearly always get away with one.)

But after a while I realised how pointless it was. I like talking pictures of wildlife and wild places. I like it when people look at them. Who cares if they don't know my name or say "Gosh, that Tannin chap is a great photographer!" I'm just happy that they are looking at pictures of something wild. So to hell with watermarking.

PS: watermarks can also be quite amusing sometimes, in a sad sort of way. (This does not apply to work of your quality, I hasten to add!) I feel guilty about laughing at this particular class of watermark, which is quite common, but one can't help it. These are the ones added by photographers with, frankly, no clue about their craft. They present a series of - let's be honest here - downright terrible pictures, proudly embossed with a big, fancy watermark full of curly writing, often with a clever logo worthy of a big professional firm with a significant marketing budget. Talk about mutton dressed as lamb! What is it with these people? If they spent one-tenth as much time, talent, and effort on learning the basics of photography as they did on creating pretentious logos and watermarks, they might actually take some OK pictures. And if they gave up on the idea of becoming professional photographers - let's face it, you get some serious displays of non-talent in this space - and pursued a career in graphic design instead, they'd do brilliantly.

[ameerat42]

... or say "Gosh, that Tannin chap is a great photographer!" ...

Strike that!

...proudly embossed with a big, fancy watermark full of curly writing, often with a clever logo worthy of a big professional firm with a significant marketing budget....

Perhaps this is their High Water Mark

PS: I generally agree. In many cases it's more like a BucketofPaintMark

[Gazza]

I should've added above, a lot of people would benefit by simply changing the opacity of their chosen 'Mark' to make it less of a feature. Think 'Water'

Also, I play on another site that's purely for competition which requires a lot of voting from all members.
To simplify my process, I start by disregarding nearly every image with a watermark. Sad, but true ₍()₎

[jim]

I agree with everybody on this thread so far which is disappointing; I may sulk.

myself, I don’t use watermarks because I have no reason to—why disfigure your image when you’re not trying to sell it or market yourself? Yes, a watermark might provide some protection against unauthorised use, but it won’t stop anybody who is really determined, and nobody has ever tried to steal one of my pictures anyway. If they did I’d be cross but I wouldn’t actually lose anything. Best to present my pictures at their best, and for me that means no watermark.

As for watermarks on other people’s pictures, if they’re really big and intrusive I’ m afraid I won’t even try to look at the picture, but small translucent ones are pretty harmless so if you like them why not bung one on?

[Brian500au]

Thanks for the input guys. I do watermark but as I said it not to do with unauthorized use, as the water mark is a small mark in a corner of the photo. It is more to do with a small marketing tool - I don't obscure the photo, but it would be good if someone liked the photo they might surf to my website and see more of my work.

My work flow is import into LR, make some minor adjustments, export to PS, make some more adjustments, add layer and use paintbrush watermark which I reduce the translucency, save to LR and do final tweaks. From LR I export a full size jpg to Smugmug. When I display on Ausphoto I always link to smugmug. All this might seem like it takes hours but in reality I have my workflow down to a couple of minutes per image. There are some things I would like to do in LR (white balance, exposure, cropping etc) and some I like to do in PS (spot removal, selective sharpening, adding watermark etc).

[Geoff79]

I also don’t, nor have I ever used a watermark before, and wouldn’t either. As for if others do, doesn’t bother me one bit.

I agree with Gaz about the timing of adding the watermark... that ideally, if I used one, I’d only add if and only when an image is posted to the interweb. Putting a watermark on one and all of your photos seems a bit out of synch to me too, personally.

And yep, totally agree with Tony too, regarding bad photos with watermarks. There’s something just not cool about that. It’d be like me adding a watermark to my shots!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[fillum]

You can add a watermark in LR during the export dialog (ie final stage) so it's actually separate from the image itself, but (from memory) it's a bit limited. The size of the watermark varies - from memory it's applied as a % of the size (height ?) of the image - so the watermark may appear different sizes between say portrait and landscape oriented images.

I think positioning was also limited to options like "top left", "bottom center", etc, although you can work around that a bit in the watermark image file.

Note that this was in the previous CC version of LR so behaviour may have changed.

[edit] So in Kel's case, you could save the existing watermark layer at the appropriate opacity to a file, and then pick up the file in the LR export dialog. The watermark file needs to be a file type that supports transparency if required (eg 'PNG').


Cheers.

[ricktas]

Each to their own...

I tend to watermark mine, but don't care if others do or do not.

However, I dislike watermarks that cover up the very point of the photo. If the main subject has a big watermark stuck over it, I tend to think.. Meh! and move on, without commenting.

[Brian500au]

Each to their own...

I tend to watermark mine, but don't care if others do or do not.

However, I dislike watermarks that cover up the very point of the photo. If the main subject has a big watermark stuck over it, I tend to think.. Meh! and move on, without commenting.

Rick what is the reason you watermark?

[ricktas]

Rick what is the reason you watermark?

I have watermarked after seeing photos being 'borrowed' and claimed by others as their own. So for me, it is just a simple way of trying to provide some level of protection for my work, that others will not use/claim it as their own. Especially when many websites strip EXIF.

In the case I refer to, a friend had her photo of a storm taken and the person then entered it in a nationwide photography competition... and won.

Once she was made aware of it, she made contact with the competition organisers (News Corp), the process they made her go through to prove it was her photo took about 2 weeks. During which time, News Corp made it public knowledge that the winning photo was being contested based on copyright, and named the person who entered it, and my friend. The abuse she copped because people thought she was the one who was trying to get the glory, and nothing else, was awful.

she provided them the RAW file, a News Corp person visited her and she took them to the location where the photo was taken. We assume they asked the person who had 'stolen' the photo to present the same. She was eventually declared the winner.

So I try to watermark my photos so that it protects them in some small way. I try and place the watermark over a section of the photo, so that it is out of the way of the subject, but if the photo was cropped it would lose quite some of its' impact.

It may not be perfect, but I can only try.

At least with Ausphotography, I have the site set-up so that only members who have posted (not just joined..they must have made at least one post), can access the critique forums and the competitions. To try and protect any member photos presented here, from being 'borrowed'. it is not fool-proof (nothing is) but I do hope it has helped in some way. You would be amazed how often I get an email that says 'I am xx from yyy and I do a monthly newsletter*, I am looking for a photo of zzz, if there is one on your site, can you email me a copy of it'. When I reply that the photos on the site are copyrighted and that I can put them in touch with the photographer if they wish.. they never reply. *insert all varied versions of this as needed for the emails I get.

So I do not watermark for publicity, I do it in the hope that I never go through what my friend had to, to prove her photo..was her photo. She now places a blended watermark right across the middle of all her photos presented online. And I suppose until it actually happens to you, or someone close to you, you do not realise the implications of having a photo you have taken, claimed by someone else. It was not a fun experience to watch and support her through.

[John King]

Thanks for both your perspective and your efforts here on the site, Rick.

[Glenda]

I've never watermarked as I've never seen any reason to for me personally. I don't particularly mind if others do as long as it's reasonably unobtrusive. I can understand people using it to promote their brand and even as Rick said to give some small amount of protection against people stealing the images.

[Brian500au]

Thanks for the reason Rick. I have been warkmarking for a few years now but recently posted a couple of shots not watermarked - it took some effort not to add that layer.

[MrQ]

I think a small, discrete watermark is fine. Ones that cover a quarter of the image are annoying and distract from the image - without fail.

Watermarking via Lightroom is easiest. It doesn't alter the final edited image as it's applied as part of the export. I have watermarks on some of my export settings but not on others, so I can just click export and get whatever type I need.

[Craig Zilko]

I used to - but not so much these days. My name doesn't lend itself to those fancy flowing signatures you see and it is really a personal thing, so I have no leaning one way or the other. Other arguments for a watermark have been discussed and from a marketing viewpoint - go for it.

[Mark L]

I haven't read every thing here yet so my comments may have been covered and therefore irreverent. (of cause they may be irreverent and that's why they haven't been covered)

Talk about mutton dressed as lamb!

9 out of 10 times if cooked properly I actually prefer the taste of mutton over lamb.
9 out of 10 times a watermark doesn't really work. If you are adding a watermark to promote yourself then your are actively promoting yourself on social media or a web sight so we know who you are before looking at a watermark.
If you are putting an overboard watermark so that people don't steal you photo from the www then just don't post the photo on the www?