Hello eveyone!!

PattyR.

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Location
Upper Peninsula of Michigan
Website
thunderlakevacationrentals.com
Can others edit my Photos
Photos NOT OK to edit
I am thrilled to be on this forum as I have a lot to learn. Right this minute I would love advice regarding watermark software. Currently I do not use any and the only editing I use on my photos is from Photo Gallery on windows. I have been told I need to start watermarking my pictures. I have been on the web and yes there are a lot of free downloads but then when I get them downloaded it's a little scary!!
Thank you in advance for your help.
Patty
 
Welcome aboard.

What is your main reason for watermarking?
If it's to "get noticed" or for marketing, there will probably be plenty of time for that, since you are a beginner. If it's so nobody steals your photos then you're pretty much wasting your time.

I think most folks use Adobe Lightroom, but if you are just starting out, use whatever you have.
 
Welcome aboard.

What is your main reason for watermarking?
If it's to "get noticed" or for marketing, there will probably be plenty of time for that, since you are a beginner. If it's so nobody steals your photos then you're pretty much wasting your time.

I think most folks use Adobe Lightroom, but if you are just starting out, use whatever you have.
Thank you Snowbear, I post a lot of my pictures on Facebook and someone mentioned that I should be watermarking my photos or they might get stolen and or sold. I have had websites use some of my shots. You suggest Adobe Lightroom, is it user friendly?
 
Welcome!

Watermarks can be removed by someone who wishes to steal your photos, so maybe that isn't the best way to prevent unauthorized use.
 
Lightroom has an interface like other Adobe products; it will take some time to learn, but I use it for 90% of my post work. I refuse to use the latest versions of Adobe products, as I am not going to pay mpnthly charges; I'll stick with the older stuff.

You don't mention what camera you have, but of it came with editing software, use that for starters. Post a few shots to get feedback (but don't take that feedback personal.) Read, learn and most importantly, have fun shooting.

Oh, and by the way, my lovely wife is from Monroe, Michigan (about 45 minutes south of Detroit).
 
Welcome!

Watermarks can be removed by someone who wishes to steal your photos, so maybe that isn't the best way to prevent unauthorized use.
Thank you very much I am already learning a lot - so when you see all of these photographers that are professional and they watermark their work it is mainly for advertising..
 
Lightroom has an interface like other Adobe products; it will take some time to learn, but I use it for 90% of my post work. I refuse to use the latest versions of Adobe products, as I am not going to pay mpnthly charges; I'll stick with the older stuff.

You don't mention what camera you have, but of it came with editing software, use that for starters. Post a few shots to get feedback (but don't take that feedback personal.) Read, learn and most importantly, have fun shooting.

Oh, and by the way, my lovely wife is from Monroe, Michigan (about 45 minutes south of Detroit).
Say hello to your wife from a transplant in Yooperland. I have used over the last several years Fuji Finepix S9200 - My husband surprised me this last Christmas and before that I was using a Fuji - I do not really like their editing software so I use Photo gallery for those purposes. I really do not like to make a lot of edits to to my photos. I have had someone tell me Photoshop light is good as well? What are your thoughts? And now the big question - I would love to upload some photos but how do I do it?
 
I can upload here but I would rather start an album
 

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Thank you very much I am already learning a lot - so when you see all of these photographers that are professional and they watermark their work it is mainly for advertising..
I have no idea why some professionals use watermarks, but if I were ever to apply one, it certainly would be seen as a way to promote my business.
 
I never cared much for watermarking, but I use Lightroom and they have good watermarking tools. If someone steals an image off Facebook they won't get too far with it though. Facebook compresses images for use on their site so much that if you try to print it later it is mostly unusable. Welcome though this is a really fun place with tons of info.
 
Welcome to the forum.

I once tried to find some statistics for how many photos are uploaded to the internet for a given time period. It's hard to pin down a number and it's obviously increasing all the time.

I was quickly able to find something that said that 350 million photos are uploaded, just to Facebook, every day.

So, without making any sort of judgement on your photos in particular, the odds of your photos being stolen is extremely low.

Watermarking is usually done as a type of protection, but it's a two edged sword. If you use a small or inconspicuous watermarks, then it's easy for someone to remove them, making them useless. But if you use a big, hard to remove watermark, then it ruins the photo and makes it look ugly, which makes it pointless to share it in the first place.

Another thing you can do, to help protect your images, is to only upload small (low resolution) images. A computer monitor is typically about 1000 pixels wide, and so a picture that is meant to be viewed in the format of a website, really only needs to be 500-600 pixels wide.

So before you upload images to the internet, you could resize them and apply significant JPEG compression. This makes the images OK to view, but they wouldn't make for good printing. So if someone did 'steal' your image, they likely couldn't print it at a high quality and probably couldn't monetize it.

But again, the odds are extremely low that your images would be stolen, so spending time and effort protecting them may not be worth it.
 
Welcome Uper. Nice forum aye?

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
 

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