How to "sign" vintage photographs?

largelylivin

I have a buyer interested in some "larger the better" prints of my grandfather's photographs that I have restored, and I am uncertain how/whether to "sign" them.

Example: http://blue-dog.smugmug.com/photos/128930343-S-1.jpg

Early on when I was producing prints for his daughters, etc, I started labeling them fairly discretely in smallish text on the photo itself in a lower corner as:

photography by Orville Waugh, about 1938 (or circa or just a date)
restored by My name

Initially, they all got a kick out of seeing his name on them, then I heard some grummbling about my name being there, so I dropped that part.

Finally, I was developing consistency problems in the relative sizes and fonts of the signatures and dealing with different colors for different prints was proving tedious, so I stopped all together.

Are there any accepted protocols or practices here? Do's and Don'ts?

What about putting an actual copyright notice in a margin? Necessary? Trashy?:scratch

largelylivin

bump

dangin

i think the term you're looking for is watermark...? of which, i haven't seen anyone come up with a specific watermark for restored images. as for watermarking images, there's a lot of different camps of thoughts. depends on how you plan on distributing it... digital or prints, what size, etc.

dragon300zx

Maybe leave the original artist info on the front in the corner like you where originally doing, then backprint your info on the prints. That way they can still get your info to contact you for reorders.

My I always have my info on the back of the print and my card always goes with the print for delivery.