watermarks,signing, ect your photos

[TTPeter]

well my dad asked me why i dont start doing it, he said people can easy start taking credit for my work, i post my pics on a few places, is somthing i should doing, i know some people put it in the middle, i normal resize my pics to 1000 by wat ever, and u will only get a small pic if u try printing nothing really big, so i dont worry to much,

ur thoughts on this

Peter

 

[Boston®]

I have never really bothered simply because I don't have a website yet, but once I am finished building mine I will be putting logos on mine. It makes you look a lot more classy.

 

[Unmanedpilot]

Its a good idea. Also some image editors can imbed info into the Jpeg file itself. So even if there is no visible watermark there is proof that it is your photo.

 

[Peanuts]

Well, unfortunately if someone wants to steal your photo, and it is on the web, they can do it (not rightfully of course). Anyone in photoshop can remove a watermark (unless it happens to be right across the face of your subject, in which case your work would generally look 'cheaper'. I do believe a better method of keepign people from printing your photos is to decrease the dpi, but, someoen else knows much more about the subject then myself.

 

[Big Mike]

DPI is actually printer setting, which has no effect on how the image looks on the screen.

I really don't like watermarks on photos...they distract from the image. As Brittany said, if someone wants to steal it...they can.

I think you are on the right track by resizing your images for web viewing. Even 1000 pixels is a bit large for a lot of people's screens. I keep my on-line images to less than 800 pixels.

 

[Jovian]

I can't stand watermarks across the front of a picture. Resize it, and embed into the file. I can't bring myself to do what I consider detracting from the photograph. I have also made my website 100% flash, which makes it harder for the average computer user to take them. sure...if you really want to, it's still possible, but like I said... average computer user.

 

[FOTO-GRAFFIC]

I have to agree with both Big Mike and Jovian on this but having said that I always put a copyright sign and name on the images on the web as this gives legal rights here in the UK - if you don't then you cannot do anything about someone stealing your work. I believe the copyright laws are different. here in the UK the photography owns copyright even if it's taken on equipmet that he doesn't own and he is being paid to take the image - here it's the finger on the shutter button that owns the picture never the person that buying, paying or requesting it. So we need to show that to stop people from stealing your work. of course it doen't stop it but you at least have rights in law by having it displayed.

 

[Unimaxium]

I put a small watermark on most photos I post on line, but nothing intrusive on the image. I, too, hate those huge watermarks that some photogs place across the middle of an image. But I don't mind having something smaller and in the corner of a photo, more as a 'signature' of sorts. My favorite mark is to just put a little bit of text at the bottom right corner of my image with my name, the year, and that cool little © symbol ;-). It can hopefully be enough to discourage casual image downloaders from spreading the image or using it for their own media by reminding them that it's copyrighted (as all photos automatically are, regardless of whether you mark them or not*). Unfortunately though, there's still no way to prevent a determined user from copying your photo except for putting a hideous watermark or making the image teensy tiny.

If you want to see some of my watermarked images, feel free click the links in my signature </shameless plug> ;-)

*At least according to US law.

 

[rachell]

I pay a yearly fee to Digimarc (http://www.digimarc.com/mypicturemarc/) to add a digital watermark to my images. There services are pretty cool because not only are you able to invisibly watermark your images, but if you pay enough, you can even track your images to you'll know when they are being used incorrectly.