Watermarks and People Stealing your pictures

[digital flower]

Since I sometimes take pictures of rare plants and flowers it can be one of only a few photos of the particular subject. I once took a picture of a Passion Flower that spread all over the place before I watermarked it. I used to try and chase it down but it has become kinda of a thing where I am interested to see where it is going to pop up. I figure if I took a picture that people liked that much once I can do it again sometime.

I have also found my pictures on ebay and plant catalogs before. The most common response is "I got it from Google didn't know it had a copyright". :er:

One thing that one has spoken of in this thread is having a watermark generally deters people from hotlinking to your picture (at least in my case). I was paying for bandwidth for people to have the photos on MySpace, blogs and forums although it doesn't seem to happen as much with my new Smugmug site.

 

[Newnan3]

I think far worse than someone cropping your watermark out is someone altering your photo.

I shoot a model who brought her friend along. I photographed the friend and emailed her a few of the good pictures. Well she liked one in particular and made it her facebook profile pic, which was cool.

But now Ive noticed she had edited the pic to selective coloring on her clothing.

First, i think selective coloring rarely looks good and second, she did it in a way that makes her skin tone look terrible........uke:

It was nice seeing "regular non-photography" peoples reaction to the picture :thumbup: But now that Im seeing how she has altered it Im glad theres nothing linking it to me......:meh: