Black Cat

[TJ_Photographer]

Coming in fresh here...

I will say this: a watermark as obnoxious as yours will definitely stop most people from stealing your photo.

But if you are posting for critique purposes, especially on The Photo Forum, it's probably best to leave the watermark out, or make it subtle. It all depends on your goals here.

That aside, I've learned that selective color is almost always a no-no. If you keep shooting, you'll probably learn that as well. But it's always good to experiment and find out what works for you. Compositionally, I don't think it's too shabby. I'd probably crop or clone the metal bar out, and the image is a little fuzzy. But good start. Keep shooting, and don't get too deterred from the reaction here. Just learn from it and keep posting.

Good luck.

Okay I'll keep that in mind. But it might be hard to keep the watermark off since I post on DeviantArt and I use the link to that image over there to post it here, cause I notice my images if I try to just upload them in this forum they are too big and won't load, that's why I had so much trouble to get my unmarked images up

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I do the same thing as you. One way is just to not upload large images. I always export my images to 1700x1700 before uploading and that works just fine.

And look at all the first pagers on deviantArt. Do you see any of them using the built in watermark? I use deviantArt as well, but learned awhile ago, it's just going to deter the already few people who are going to look at your post away.

Okay I see that, but as of right now I have 135 watchers and it's been rising fast, I just don't want people to just take it as their own without my consent, it's not like I don't get barely any viewers I get plenty, and I used to use the DeviantArt watermark, but my friend made a cool one for me so I use that. If people like the image enough and want to see it without the watermark ID be glad to show them, but this is the first anyone has said anything about it.

Sent From Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk

Welcome to TPF.

A watermark is only a mild deterrent. Especially on a site like Deviant Art where lots of people have the skill to remove it easily. This took me ten minutes:

View attachment 119191

The real bottom line is: If you put it on the web and someone wants it, they can take it. The one thing they can't do is increase the resolution. So just keep the images at or below 1000 pixels on the long side and at least they won't be able to make a large print or professional quality reproduction.

Joe

Okay, I think I'll start doing that then, thanks for the advice

Coming in fresh here...

I will say this: a watermark as obnoxious as yours will definitely stop most people from stealing your photo.

But if you are posting for critique purposes, especially on The Photo Forum, it's probably best to leave the watermark out, or make it subtle. It all depends on your goals here.

That aside, I've learned that selective color is almost always a no-no. If you keep shooting, you'll probably learn that as well. But it's always good to experiment and find out what works for you. Compositionally, I don't think it's too shabby. I'd probably crop or clone the metal bar out, and the image is a little fuzzy. But good start. Keep shooting, and don't get too deterred from the reaction here. Just learn from it and keep posting.

Good luck.

Okay I'll keep that in mind. But it might be hard to keep the watermark off since I post on DeviantArt and I use the link to that image over there to post it here, cause I notice my images if I try to just upload them in this forum they are too big and won't load, that's why I had so much trouble to get my unmarked images up

Sent From Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk

I do the same thing as you. One way is just to not upload large images. I always export my images to 1700x1700 before uploading and that works just fine.

And look at all the first pagers on deviantArt. Do you see any of them using the built in watermark? I use deviantArt as well, but learned awhile ago, it's just going to deter the already few people who are going to look at your post away.

Okay I see that, but as of right now I have 135 watchers and it's been rising fast, I just don't want people to just take it as their own without my consent, it's not like I don't get barely any viewers I get plenty, and I used to use the DeviantArt watermark, but my friend made a cool one for me so I use that. If people like the image enough and want to see it without the watermark ID be glad to show them, but this is the first anyone has said anything about it.

Sent From Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk

Welcome to TPF.

A watermark is only a mild deterrent. Especially on a site like Deviant Art where lots of people have the skill to remove it easily. This took me ten minutes:

View attachment 119191

The real bottom line is: If you put it on the web and someone wants it, they can take it. The one thing they can't do is increase the resolution. So just keep the images at or below 1000 pixels on the long side and at least they won't be able to make a large print or professional quality reproduction.

Joe

Sent From Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk

 

[timor]

Coming in fresh here...

I will say this: a watermark as obnoxious as yours will definitely stop most people from stealing your photo.

But if you are posting for critique purposes, especially on The Photo Forum, it's probably best to leave the watermark out, or make it subtle. It all depends on your goals here.

That aside, I've learned that selective color is almost always a no-no. If you keep shooting, you'll probably learn that as well. But it's always good to experiment and find out what works for you. Compositionally, I don't think it's too shabby. I'd probably crop or clone the metal bar out, and the image is a little fuzzy. But good start. Keep shooting, and don't get too deterred from the reaction here. Just learn from it and keep posting.

Good luck.

Okay I'll keep that in mind. But it might be hard to keep the watermark off since I post on DeviantArt and I use the link to that image over there to post it here, cause I notice my images if I try to just upload them in this forum they are too big and won't load, that's why I had so much trouble to get my unmarked images up

Sent From Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk

Try to disable your firewall just for the time of upload. All images posted on this forum go first to certain Microsoft server and not directly to TPF. Maybe somehow your FW is blocking that. My do. Not sure, why TPF is set up like this, other photo forums I am member of don't.

 

[Designer]

I'm sorry if this has become a disturbance and is taking away from the photo.

I think you might use this experience as a valuable learning opportunity. Contrary to your teacher's advice, a watermark is no guarantee that your image won't be stolen, as Joe has illustrated.

As an artist (albeit a beginner) you should try to make the one most important thing about your image to garner the most comment. If it's the cat's eye color, then that is what you want the majority of comments to be about. (Or the pose, the frame, the overall composition, etc.) When most of the comments seem to be about the watermark, and you haven't intended that reaction, then your presentation has failed (your intent).

 

[TJ_Photographer]

I'm sorry if this has become a disturbance and is taking away from the photo.

I think you might use this experience as a valuable learning opportunity. Contrary to your teacher's advice, a watermark is no guarantee that your image won't be stolen, as Joe has illustrated.

As an artist (albeit a beginner) you should try to make the one most important thing about your image to garner the most comment. If it's the cat's eye color, then that is what you want the majority of comments to be about. (Or the pose, the frame, the overall composition, etc.) When most of the comments seem to be about the watermark, and you haven't intended that reaction, then your presentation has failed (your intent).

Okay, that's good advice, thank you

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[robbins.photo]

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I think you'll also find people in general are a lot more honest than you might think. I post here on occasion, and I also post a bit on facebook. I don't sell my images, however I have had a few people contact me and ask me if they could buy prints. On those occasions I've simply sent them a full sized image so they could print it themselves, since for me photography is a hobby and not a profession.

So it's been my experience at least that the vast majority of people who are interested in your images will be honest and contact you and offer remuneration. Those who aren't, well as it was mentioned previously a watermark really isn't a huge deterrent for those folks anyway.

Now granted opinions on watermarking vary widely, and certainly there is nothing wrong with watermarking your images if you feel the need to do so. I've never really seen it to be necessary myself personally. I figure the images I do post are only one or two of the thousands that most people see everyday. I guess I've just never considered my images to be so far and above the thousands of others that someone would be likely to rush out and want to print it, and truth is since I don't make a living selling pictures I'm really not all that bothered if someone does. YMMV of course.

 

[DGMPhotography]

^ what he said. For me, my watermark is more used for marketing. So the people who aren't going to remove the watermark people can look at the image and in the corner is my name so they know who made the photo.

 

[jsecordphoto]

^ what he said. For me, my watermark is more used for marketing. So the people who aren't going to remove the watermark people can look at the image and in the corner is my name so they know who made the photo.

exactly. Take a look online at the some of biggest names in landscape photography (think Chris Burkard, Ted Gore, Michael Shainblum, etc.), they all just put a small watermark somewhere in the corner or bottom of their images. People can, and will, steal the images if they want, watermarks are typically very easy to clone out in photoshop. Now I just use pixsy to send them a bill when the images get stolen