WATERMARKING - question

[tissa]

So I am not a pro and not even close, but I started to get some pictures that I like and i would like to watermark them.
I do not use Photoshop and I have a Mac. Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

p.S. I do not want to pay for software if possible LOL

 

[tissa]

nevermind, guys, I found a free software (sometimes it really helps to be bilingual)

 

[JasonLambert]

What is Google in other languages? :lmao:

 

[tissa]

google is other languages is YANDEX
and all the google will give you will be stuff for $$$

 

[cnutco]

nevermind, guys, I found a free software (sometimes it really helps to be bilingual)

Share with us, Please!

What is this software that you speak of?

 

[crystalclear]

I agree. I have been looking for something like this. Please share.

 

[HikinMike]

I agree. I have been looking for something like this. Please share.

Gimp?

 

[magkelly]

Paint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo Editing
Inkscape. Draw Freely.

These plus GIMP are my favorite Photoshop and Illustrator freeware alternatives. Gimp has far more features than these do, but these have a lot of what I need to edit photos and I have used both and found them very easy to use. I take these and GIMP along when I have to go do work on someone else's computer and I can't put my Adobe on.

Give them a shot.

All you need to watermark is a program that can handle layers. You need to use a text tool on a transparent layer over the copy of your photo. You type, then lower the visibility of the text so it's almost transparent, then merge the layers. You want to always make sure you put the text where it's inconvenient to remove but also make sure your viewer can see through it to the photo.

That's it.

You can use a plug in, but why bother unless you want to batch job a lot of them? It's almost as easy to do it yourself as it is to use a plug.

 

[cnutco]

I have been practicing in Illustrator, but I will need MUCH more time to learn vectors...

 

[kkamin]

In my humble opinion, I think unless you are a working photographer and are watermarking your client's web res files for marketing purposes or their digital proofs as copy protection, it looks fairly tacky. Especially if your images are short of spectacular, it's an odd pairing of amateur photo with professional copy protection--it can make the image maker look extremely pretentious. But if you go to top photographer's web sites, you ironically will rarely see watermarks anywhere. They end up obstructing part of the artist's image and call too much attention to themselves.

If you are really worried about people stealing your images, register them with the copyright office for added protection.

 

[magkelly]

In my humble opinion, I think unless you are a working photographer and are watermarking your client's web res files for marketing purposes or their digital proofs as copy protection, it looks fairly tacky. Especially if your images are short of spectacular, it's an odd pairing of amateur photo with professional copy protection--it can make the image maker look extremely pretentious. But if you go to top photographer's web sites, you ironically will rarely see watermarks anywhere. They end up obstructing part of the artist's image and call too much attention to themselves.

If you are really worried about people stealing your images, register them with the copyright office for added protection.

Well, I'm sorry but I have to say I totally disagree with you on this one and I'm not a pro, yet. I do watermark all of mine that I post online and for good reasons. It's not about ego it's about the photographs not being used for purposes I don't intend.

I'm certainly not the best photographer on the planet but I've still had a photo lifted and claimed as someone else's. I've also seen a friend's vacation bathing suit photos used on a dating site once without her consent. FYI, she never posted those for general viewing. She had uploaded them onto an online photo storage site so she could get prints made for her guy and some for herself but that was it. All those photos of her in her skimpy swimsuit somehow they made their way onto that dating site and she was very upset to see that.

I don't care if it's my worst photo ever. It's still MINE and I want to choose where it's used and I want credit for it. A good watermark can often be the difference between the photo remaining your own or ending up on someone's facebook page without permission these days. It's only common sense to use one, IMHO.

I will do my best to make mine not so in your face that you can't see the photo to view it but there's no way any photo of mine goes online without one unless I okay it. I rarely do these days unless it's a friend's portrait or something and they ask me not to for their social networking site or something like that.

After having one of my best shots taken and claimed by someone else, seeing my friend's situation happen, I've unfortunately learned that I must be that anal about it.

You don't have to be a pro to have your photos end up all over the internet and used in ways you never thought they would be. Some people just don't care they'll do whatever they want with your stuff regardless of having your permission or not.

Sad, but so true lately....

As for registering every photo I want to put online that's a fairly expensive option I would think! A watermark is no doubt a lot more practical and far less expensive.

 

[bigtwinky]

I hate watermarks. As said, I can see when its used for client proofing or for working pros, but I see so many people throw up these god ugly watermarks and kill the image when trying to view it.

The purpose of a photo sharing site for me is to share my photos, in the best way I can, with as little clutter I can. Else, the impact of the photo may be removed if people are looking at a watermark.

If i were really worried about people stealing my images, then I wouldn't post them online at all. Watermarks can so very easily be removed. Unless they are plastered all over the image, in which case, they are tacky and remove the focus on the image

 

[kkamin]

I'm certainly not the best photographer on the planet but I've still had a photo lifted and claimed as someone else's. I've also seen a friend's vacation bathing suit photos used on a dating site once without her consent. FYI, she never posted those for general viewing. She had uploaded them onto an online photo storage site so she could get prints made for her guy and some for herself but that was it. All those photos of her in her skimpy swimsuit somehow they made their way onto that dating site and she was very upset to see that.

That's unfortunate that happened. But why would she watermark photos intended for print anyways? This is more of an issue with the security of the online storage site and watermarking wouldn't be applicable here.

I don't care if it's my worst photo ever. It's still MINE and I want to choose where it's used and I want credit for it. A good watermark can often be the difference between the photo remaining your own or ending up on someone's facebook page without permission these days. It's only common sense to use one, IMHO.

If someone really wants to steal your photo, they will whether it's watermarked or not. They can:

1. crop it out
2. remove it using the clone/healing brush tools in Photoshop CS4
3. quickly remove it with content aware fill in Photoshop CS5 (in about 10 sec.)
4. or not care and take it anyways
5. some people disable the right mouse button and thus disable the 'save as' command for Windows, but Mac users can just drag the image off and Windows users can get screen capture freeware to get around this (Mac has screen capture built in to the OS too).

If you are worried about people using your images, then don't post them to the internet. Or if you size your images at about 500 pixels on the longest side, a good looking print could never be made from them.

But a watermark is not going to stop that many people and it ends up looking gaudy and pretentious. If you find someone using your image, screen capture all the uses you can find of that image and then send them a cease and desist email. If you images have commercial potential, get them electronically registered with the copyright office for added protection.

But seriously, and no offense, I've never seen any of your images and I'm not commenting on you at all, watermarks look ridiculous if they images are not polished themselves and reflects poorly on the image maker. It's like when you see the delusional people on American Idol tryouts.

 

[magkelly]

She didn't and that's my point. Photos she thought were private to her account were not. Someone else used them as their own supposed photos to get dates via an adult dating site. The only reason she found out at all was because someone she knew was on there and asked her about that, why her photos had another name on them. They knew she was committed and in a LTR and not the type to cheat. They didn't think it was likely it was her posting "hot" hook up ads and in this case they were absolutely right. Someone had grabbed her photos from the picture storage place, slapped some other woman's name on them and used them to seek dates on this adult site.

I personally do not use online sites for getting copies of my photos made for that very reason. I either do them myself or hit a local photo place for professional ones. If I post them online for people to view I do watermark them and I do make them only for web, not for print quality, but still you do have to think about people using them online now for things too. Sure, you might not be able to print that summer swimsuit shot, but you'd only need 75 dpi to plaster it on a website and make an ad out of it or something.

As for watermarks being cropped out, etc, you just have to make sure that when you do it it's not that easy to get a good shot out of it sans the watermark or to remove it using the clone tool etc. It's not that easy always to do that unless the watermark is in an easy location and clear, not textured or mixed into the photograph at an awkward location. I try to give them some depth and use a border around text for that reason. It makes it a bit harder to just edit them out of there. Sure, you can probably get any watermark off of a photo with a whole lot of work in the end, but the idea is to make it a LOT of work, so people who do this won't want to even bother.

I'm not perfect on that score but I do my best to make sure mine are not generally speaking easy to remove. I also try to make sure it's not so visible as to wreck viewing the photo. There's a happy medium, shrug. In the end I honestly don't care. I'd simply rather have some level of security there than not. At least if I attempt it something is there to make someone think twice about using that photo sans my permission. Most people will ask before they just take it anyway or if they want a copy sans the watermark for something like a wallpaper or whatever.

The one time someone did rip off one of my shots I do think it was because I wasn't doing that. I hate to have to go there, but I am going for pro eventually and I do have to think about that being an issue. Not too many of my photos are good enough yet I think for actual publication, but some efforts are and I do want to protect those. They may be my bread and butter someday, who knows? I can't very well sell one and get anything if they are all already over the internet sans copyright or watermarking. But even amateurs I think should use them to some degree. I think it's just prudent unless you don't care at all about where your personal photos might end up. It sure beats finding your face on a sex model's body doing things that just might embarrass you if anyone at work stumbles upon it. These days it's SOP to Google someone before hire and many people get not hired (or fired) because of some doctored photo online that's a bit too racy for some hiring manager's taste.

Since I have begun to use watermarks I have had a few requests to use my photos, but no one to my knowledge has just taken any. That one guy he even went a step further. He actually claimed it was his photo. It wasn't just that he grabbed it to use on his Facebook page or whatever. He took credit for the photography. I don't particularly like people using my pics on Facebook or whatever but that at least is mostly harmless.

Someone taking my photo and claiming it as their own didn't exactly make my day. I take it, I definitely want credit for it and if they are going to take my photos and use them without my permission, well all I can say is I may not be able to stop them but I do mean to make them work really hard for it! I'd infinitely rather been seen as pretentious than not given the alternative.

I'm certainly not the best photographer on the planet but I've still had a photo lifted and claimed as someone else's. I've also seen a friend's vacation bathing suit photos used on a dating site once without her consent. FYI, she never posted those for general viewing. She had uploaded them onto an online photo storage site so she could get prints made for her guy and some for herself but that was it. All those photos of her in her skimpy swimsuit somehow they made their way onto that dating site and she was very upset to see that.

That's unfortunate that happened. But why would she watermark photos intended for print anyways? This is more of an issue with the security of the online storage site and watermarking wouldn't be applicable here.

I don't care if it's my worst photo ever. It's still MINE and I want to choose where it's used and I want credit for it. A good watermark can often be the difference between the photo remaining your own or ending up on someone's facebook page without permission these days. It's only common sense to use one, IMHO.

If someone really wants to steal your photo, they will whether it's watermarked or not. They can:

1. crop it out
2. remove it using the clone/healing brush tools in Photoshop CS4
3. quickly remove it with content aware fill in Photoshop CS5 (in about 10 sec.)
4. or not care and take it anyways
5. some people disable the right mouse button and thus disable the 'save as' command for Windows, but Mac users can just drag the image off and Windows users can get screen capture freeware to get around this (Mac has screen capture built in to the OS too).

If you are worried about people using your images, then don't post them to the internet. Or if you size your images at about 500 pixels on the longest side, a good looking print could never be made from them.

But a watermark is not going to stop that many people and it ends up looking gaudy and pretentious. If you find someone using your image, screen capture all the uses you can find of that image and then send them a cease and desist email. If you images have commercial potential, get them electronically registered with the copyright office for added protection.

But seriously, and no offense, I've never seen any of your images and I'm not commenting on you at all, watermarks look ridiculous if they images are not polished themselves and reflects poorly on the image maker. It's like when you see the delusional people on American Idol tryouts.

 

[kkamin]

I understand your concern, but I think we can agree to disagree. If a company is using your unlicensed image for commercial purposes that would be a happy day and a big pay day for you. Commercial images command a heafty licensing fee, more than I think you are aware of. If someone cuts out a head from a portrait and puts it on a porn model, is your watermark really over the face of your subject to protect it? I'm not against watermarks. But where they are not really needed, they tend to look like someone is trying too hard to look cool or quasi-professional. And again, a watermark is not a deterrent, unless it is very large, and at that point it would be a deterrent from people enjoying the image. I don't think there is a happy medium, because once it gets big enough to start "protecting" the image, it starts to distract the viewer and alter their experience.