Do you watermark ALL your images?

mr tommo

mr tommo

mr tommo

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Stoke-on-Trent
The stuff I've been photographing lately has been more for the fun of it than anything. I've asked a few sporty people I know if I can go along to take photos of them. For example, this week I went to a local mountain bike trail and practiced taking some action shots as he rode his bike through the woods.

Now he wants me to put them up on Facebook for him and to show his fellow mountain biker mates. My problem is, I work at a photographers full time and also do weddings part time. These photos don't come under either of these its more for my personal portfolio, however with that new ruling that seems to have people scared, I don't know what to do with regards a watermark?

What do the non professionals do here when taking photos and putting them online?

EDIT : Would a watermark of just my name look stupid?
 
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While you are on that subject, do you have to export your landscape and portraits shots separately with the way lightroom watermark works?
 
I turn off my watermark when I put black bars on my images. They just look weird with a watermark on them.
 
Never watermarked anything but then I have no interest in making money from my photos and don't really mind if others use them, weird attitude I know!.

It's a tricky dilema so often I see average snapshots with a massive disfiguring water mark right through the middle and ask myself why did the photographer bother sharing it if they were going to spoil it. Conversley a nice subtle water mark like Raymond's is easily ignored and doesn't detract from the photo it also offers little to know protection against them being used.

For me the choice downs to would you hope to make money from the shot? If so stick a waking great water mark accross the middle it's the only way a water mark will deter people from using it and even then it will still crop up as a profile pic on facebook. Other than that if you like one as a signature put something small and subtle in a corner but don't expect it to work as a deterent.
 
Yeah it's a bit of a predicament really. Everything else I do is watermarked as its affiliated to a business, its just my hobby photography which is getting into sports I'd like to take somewhere one day.

The watermark I had in mind was just my first and last name, pretty small, in white with 30-40% opacity in the bottom right hand corner.

My sports photography isn't great at the moment so personally don't think it would get pinched but I wouldn't mind somebody seeing it when I'm much better in the future and asking me to do some sports photography.

EDIT : With the above name in mind, would you put the copyright symbol before it? I don't want to put photography in the name as its not a business, but also I don't want it to look like it's me on my bike in the photo :confused:
 
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I think they look pretty ugly, so no.

But I do make sure all the metadata is fully filled out with my contact details and licensing restrictions.
 
mr tommo said:
Yeah it's a bit of a predicament really. Everything else I do is watermarked as its affiliated to a business, its just my hobby photography which is getting into sports I'd like to take somewhere one day.

The watermark I had in mind was just my first and last name, pretty small, in white with 30-40% opacity in the bottom right hand corner.

My sports photography isn't great at the moment so personally don't think it would get pinched but I wouldn't mind somebody seeing it when I'm much better in the future and asking me to do some sports photography.

EDIT : With the above name in mind, would you put the copyright symbol before it? I don't want to put photography in the name as its not a business, but also I don't want it to look like it's me on my bike in the photo :confused:
Click to expand...

I really wouldn't bother with the copyright symbol it looks really amature to me. Try and get your name into a logo or something so that it can be almost a personal brand.
 
Everything I upload to Flickr I watermark, mainly because Lightroom does it for me. If I upload something to Facebook or Twitter I don't bother.
 
I don't watermark anything at the moment.

Mostly because nothing is really good enough to be worth stealing, but also because I haven't built up a site or anything that if you searched for said watermark it might give a result of a further range of my work (be it Flickr or FB or a personal site), and also because I haven't bothered creating a watermark I'm happy with yet.

kd
 
The only time I have ever watermarked was to advertise. I've gone back to shooting just for myself so I don't bother with any watermarks. They never enhance a photo, I'm not looking to advertise or make any money commercially, a watermark won't stop anyone taking your photo if they really want to.
 
Anything that is shot for my sake i.e. I see as purely a photographic piece, gets a watermark anywhere outside of my website.

If I'm taking someone else's photo and their paying me I'll obviously not give them the watermark, if it's an event or similar then I will have watermarked ones for web distribution but often I'll go without if it's for facebook. Also I've been taking loads of yearbook photos at school this year and there've been some photos I haven't wanted to advertise being mine too much simply because it's not the sort of work I want people coming to me with as I just did it to help out.
 
Watermarks don't change anything legally, they look pretty ugly and unless they are a a giant hideous watermark across the center of the subject are easy to crop away or otherwise remove in photoshop. I attach all copyright information in the IPTC fields and tend not to upload full res photos. A fair amount of my work ends up on stock agencies so if I suspect a photo has been stolen or misused I can contact several Agencies who will pay their lawyers to chase the culprit without rising a penny myself. - in fact you get paid to have legal protection of your photos through sales!
 
Yes, watermark on your photos is so that others will not want to try to copy and use the photo without permission and in take name is similar to image not you name. Currently Adobe Photo shop is very popular to adding a text watermark in Photoshop is very easily. It just use the Type tool and place a text string over the photo in gray and edit the text to make it look like you want.
 
As has been said, watermark to advertise not to protect. Protecting is largely useless and is very obtrusive whereas to advertise it's generally possible to be more subtle while having it still be recognisable.
 
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