Why Every Photo Needs WATERMARKING and COPYRIGHTING

Art Scott

Why Every Photo Needs WATERMARKING and COPYRIGHTING....now even State Govts are stealing artwork!!!!!!!

http://tinyurl.com/28bahhk

I mean HUGE HONKIN' WATERMARKS.......across the middle of the pix...................

Sam

Art, This topic has been beat to death. There are pluses and minuses to huge ugly watermarks. We are all free to make up our own minds. I chose not to obliterate an image and drive viewers away, other are free to do what they think is best.

You are just learning that the gov steals!!! You are slow.

Sam

Art Scott

Sam wrote: »

Art, This topic has been beat to death. There are pluses and minuses to huge ugly watermarks. We are all free to make up our own minds. I chose not to obliterate an image and drive viewers away, other are free to do what they think is best.

You are just learning that the gov steals!!! You are slow.

Sam

Sam,
Think that if you read all of the post that you would see, I stated I know the govt is a thief....I first hand was the victim of the govt stealing directly .....I mean the govt came into my parent's house (I was 12) and cleaned it out while we were at an out of state funeral (military).....Yes I know the govt steals, they took every item that had belonged to my brother that we were burying that was killed in VIET NAM....every item right down to his socks and tooth brush that he had left on his last visit......................as to wm'ing that is personal choice........there are still people that are wondering if they should or not wm or even copyright......that is why it was posted ...........

Sam

Art,

Please note the smiley face. I am very sorry about the gov coming into your house and cleaning out your brotheres belongings.

Sam

Art Scott

No harm>>>>>>>no fowl
Sorry did not see the smiley at first reading......I quickly loose coherent think when it comes to
Govt doing stuff to us.........It was a very surreal thing to have happen..........as it really broke my
mothers heart to loose it all (letters, pictures...everything).........so I always do my civic duty and vote
RELIGIOUSLY:D:D:D

NO HARM>>>>>>>>>>>NO FOWL

Glort

I'm about to test a change of heart of sorts and try posting shots on the web for event clients to purchase...despite every experience thus far indicating this is unlikely to be successful for me.

In doing this, I want to watermark the shots as I have absoloutley no doubt they will be stolen to be put on facespace and the like and that watermarking them in itself will be completely useless in stopping this so the best I can hope for is some advertising value from it.

I have seen a lot of shooters watermark the entirety of the image with a shadow like watermark which completely obliterates the image. I'm a shooter and I can't tell whether the image is even in focus and as the thing looks such a dogs breakfast, I can't see any client being inspired to by it.

I think i'll try it your way Art, with a multi colour text right across the middle. It appears to be prominent enough to be difficult to remove and still allows the over all image to be uncorrupted enough to allow it's appeal to a potential buyer to come through.

For me in MY markets, I really have great reservations about this online thing. I can certainly recognise the potential to certain clients and a lot of them in my market but so far, despite the appropriateness of method to the client base, the facts are that it hasn't worked.

The most recent example is a big event a couple of months ago and had 20 view stations but then received a heap of emails from people saying they had to leave early, couldn't get an available computer... and could i please put them online. Thinking that this would be different to past experience, I set it all up including a new domain. Took me a full day to get the 15K images up and in over a month, so far, not one single order.
And yes, the fact they were online was very well publicised by the association on their own and face space sites, by me directly emailing the clubs and all the people that contacted me.

I'll give it one more go with a couple of events I have coming up in the next few weeks and print some flyers and cards and make sure they are distributed at the event and see how I go from there.
My gut feeling is I'm going to loose onsite sales and get jack from the online but thats the risk I have to take to give it a proper and committed go so I can prove myself wrong or right either way.

As basic a question as it is, given I haven't done watermarking before, can anyone suggest the most efficient way to add the watermarking to large numbers of images ( in reasonable detail please) ?

Art Scott

who do you use for a website host?? with SmugMug...there is a built in WM....Mine was made in PS on a transparent background and saved as
a png...then uploaded to a gallery dedicated to watermarks....and here is the Tute page on Watermarks