Watermarks and Signatures...

Shades of Blue · Jan 5, 2016

Quick question. I am working on creating my watermark and I have noticed that the majority of people use their first and last name, followed by "photography." Is there anything wrong with just using my last name? Should I at least add my first initial?

480sparky · Jan 5, 2016

There's no one, single 'right' way of WM'ing your images. Just do it the way you feel comfortable with.

Shades of Blue · Jan 5, 2016

480sparky said:
There's no one, single 'right' way of WM'ing your images. Just do it the way you feel comfortable with.

Thank you sir. My name is long, and I don't like the look of just initials. It just looks right with my last name. But, didn't know if just using a last name was a no no, or didn't fulfill copyright requirements and so forth.

480sparky · Jan 5, 2016

Watermarking has nothing to do with copyrighting. At least in the US.

If © R. Gritzzelspudsworth looks good to you, go for it.

Shades of Blue · Jan 5, 2016

480sparky said:
Watermarking has nothing to do with copyrighting. At least in the US.

If © R. Gritzzelspudsworth looks good to you, go for it.

Ok, yeah you are right....

imagemaker46 · Jan 5, 2016

Use what you want and what you think looks good. I used to have a much longer company name, decided it was time to re-brand myself and went with my name and photography. I use a shorter form on instagram and another name for my twitter account. Everything I use does end up back at my web site though, using two domain names.

ruggedshutter · Jan 6, 2016

I gave up watermarking my images online. I still have a few floating around with it on there but for the most part I took it off. I did this for 2 reasons; first people are going to remove it or print it with it on the photo and little will be done in most cases and second it's a PITA to keep them well managed if you go back and find an image that you wanted to use for a portfolio that isn't WM'd. You need to open software, load image, attach WM, export, file image in proper folder...etc. It became too much to manage with my workflow.

astroNikon · Jan 6, 2016

The watermark is just your advertising of the photo, just in case someone wants to contact you based on the photos.
If you have a website that is your MyPhotographs.com then you would want your watermark to be the same .. MyPhotographs.com. Or JohnDoePhotography.com, like wise for John Doe.
Just very simple and easy marketing.

of course, getting the fonts and stuff is the artistic portion of it.

480sparky · Jan 6, 2016

ruggedshutter said:
I gave up watermarking my images online. I still have a few floating around with it on there but for the most part I took it off. I did this for 2 reasons; first people are going to remove it or print it with it on the photo and little will be done in most cases and second it's a PITA to keep them well managed if you go back and find an image that you wanted to use for a portfolio that isn't WM'd. You need to open software, load image, attach WM, export, file image in proper folder...etc. It became too much to manage with my workflow.

You shouldn't really be posting full-res images online to begin with. Dropping the image size down to a point where the infringers won't want it is key. So when I resize an image for the sole purpose of posting online, it gets a WM. The low-res + WM will probably keep 95% of the potential thieves from wanting the image in the first place.

Shades of Blue · Jan 6, 2016

I've just been using a text editor in pixlr and adding it to the JPEG when I save it from RAW to post online. Pretty easy and I only have to do it to the images I plan to share. It's plain, but better than nothing I suppose.