Copyright and watermark questions

[pixel pete]

Ah.. Colin that was painful for my ears. I hate when a website shoves music down your throat like that and there's place to turn it off.

At least your picture didn't end up in an adult website. I've had that happen. And my watermark was on the image, front and center.

What are you going to do?

[Colin Southern]

What are you going to do?

I'm going to go home

Seriously, it's not taking any $$$ out of my pocket - and I doubt they're even getting much "air time" - so I'm seriously not worried about it

[vaggypar]

Hi Guys!
Please excuse my ignorance but can anyone tell me HOW to watermark my pictures. Try to make it "Idiot's Giude "Level, if you do not mind.
Many thanks,

[Dave Humphries]

Hi there vaggypar,

OK, two things to make our job easier;
1) What's your first name
2) What PP software do you have?

And a bit of advice, especially if for posting for photographic critique here, or anywhere else, don't ruin the picture with it

Cheers,

[Colin Southern]

Hi Guys!
Please excuse my ignorance but can anyone tell me HOW to watermark my pictures. Try to make it "Idiot's Giude "Level, if you do not mind.
Many thanks,

Thought of the moment - and not everyone agrees with me on this - but I suggest people think long and hard about watermarking images. If it's really necessary then fine, but in the majority of cases people ruin the image for 100% of the people so that the 0.01% who want to rip it off are somewhat thwarted (I say "somewhat" because in many cases you can remove it with a bit of "Photoshopping" anyway).

For me, the big question was "If I don't watermark then will it take any $$$ out of my pocket" - I came to the conclusion (for me) "no" - and so I have fairly high resolution images on my website that anyone can rip off. HAS anyone ripped my off? Yes. Did it take any $$$ out of my pocket? No (they wouldn't have bought from me anyway). Do I get more sales because people aren't distracted by watermarks? Probably or possibly (who knows).

No right or wrong answers here - just some food for thought.

Welcome to CiC too by the way - great to have you here with us

[Henrik]

Hi Guys!
Please excuse my ignorance but can anyone tell me HOW to watermark my pictures. Try to make it "Idiot's Giude "Level, if you do not mind.
Many thanks,

First a little question: What does PP stand for? (Post Processing?)

Here is a guide for making watermarks with Adobe Photoshop Elements, which I guess you might be using: http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/...les/10348.aspx

The Pro version of ACDSee has a built in feature to let you watermark the lot of your pictures. Very nice.

If you are using a dedicated photosite for your photos - that is sites like: smugmug, zenfolio, aminus3 - you have the opportunity to automatically get your watermark on every uploaded picture. Yet, aminus3 is the only place, where you can get it free. You'll have to settle with their standard watermark (without the ©), but that is quite OK, see example below.

My own thoughts are that I would not watermark a photo, I was about to send to a friend. I also follow those, who seem to "let the stealing pass" - as this only seldom happens. But having pictures placed at different photosites makes me uncertain of who does what with my pictures!? Aminus3 shows the pictures at 800 pixels wide. For this rather big size I like their discrete watermark.

By the way: Do open a free photoblog account at http://www.aminus3.com/. Limits are: 1 photo per day, 3Mb / 6 Mpix. They have their own community and an funny color-detecting thing, so it is possible to search for pictures in distinct colors.

Regards, Henrik

[Colin Southern]

Hi Henrik,

Yes - PP is short for "Post Processing"

With regards to copyright notices on images - I hope you don't mind (and I'll remove this if you do), but I just wanted to make a small point about the futility of it (took less than a minute) ...

[Dave Humphries]

With regards to copyright notices on images - I hope you don't mind (and I'll remove this if you do), but I just wanted to make a small point about the futility of it (took less than a minute) ...

Impressive Colin,
I agree about the futility too.
So what is written below is not about trying to prevent theft at all.

I have to say I do not consider that to be "discreet" and it isn't the only example we see here.
OK, it/they may not be peak white and emblazoned diagonally across the whole picture width/height, or stamped on the subject itself, but to me, they are still a bit too bold and, some more than others, spoil the pic for 99.9% of viewers for the sake of 0.1% or less.

Discreet to me, is something that you are aware of, but that doesn't spoil the picture by grabbing attention, putting it in a border is a good way to do this (Colin is right again).

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem when necessary putting something in the image reminding people of the copyright owners name and perhaps a means of making contact like an e-mail address, but it should not 'shout' at the casual viewer, just be there if needed. When I did some sports photography last year, I used to manually watermark (embed some text) here is an example gallery, click through and see how it changes from one to the next to suit the image. If I did it again, I'd probably tone these down/blend them in even more now, although you can get to a point where the jpg compression seriously disrupts readability if too small or too insignificant a tone change from adjacent background pixels, so the use of a border may be the way to go.

By the way, having a reference to easily find the file is a good idea; if you do get an e-mail "about that picture with the woman on a bike", and you have 30 published ....

Yes, I know the information can be put in EXIF data, but not many people know how to access that, or they would do so by downloading the image to their HDD to view it in their image editor, so they've already 'done wrong' by then and can print it/use it as desktop wallpaper easily.

Now I'm not saying I'm right and everyone else is wrong, what I suggest is just the labour intensive (and uneconomic, if I were a pro!) way I choose to do it - but only when I see a benefit to me/others.

I accept that all this is easy for me to say; I am currently lucky enough to be in full time employment and not reliant on selling images to feed the family, I might have a different viewpoint if that were the case (as it is for some members).

Here's a final thought; imagine if the great artists had signed their masterpieces at that font size (relative to picture size)

[Steaphany]

Erm...speaking about how to put the c in the circle in my watermark...how do you do it? I thought you just used the symbol function from Word...

Well, to use copywrite symbol, you need a keyboard with a © key

Joking aside, just cut and paste the © character from this post into the Text tool to add text to your image. But, and I'm hoping that your browser is properly displaying the copyright © character, a lot will depend on the photo software that you are using. Some I have toss the extra bits reverting it to an 8 bit equivalent, others just leave blank space, and some work.

Here is a useful web page regarding expanded character usage:

How to enter alt symbols?

[GillR]

[snip]

For me, the big question was "If I don't watermark then will it take any $$$ out of my pocket" - I came to the conclusion (for me) "no" - and so I have fairly high resolution images on my website that anyone can rip off. HAS anyone ripped my off? Yes. Did it take any $$$ out of my pocket? No (they wouldn't have bought from me anyway). Do I get more sales because people aren't distracted by watermarks? Probably or possibly (who knows).
[snip]

I don't - at all - disagree with your view that the vast majority of people who purloin other people's images wouldn't have bought a print anyway, so the photographer isn't 'losing any money' in that sense. But there are a couple of other considerations which really bug me (and I don't even sell prints ). YMMV.

I've been a member of deviantART for 4 years and I've seen even small and reasonably sized images ripped off to make money in other ways. One way is using them on small(ish) objects where size and/or quality need not be paramount: key fobs, badges, mouse mats, shoes or even tshirts for example. They turn up on sites like Zazzle and CafePress and eBay. If someone wanted to take one of my images and print it on their own tshirt, then good luck to them. But printing it on demand and making a profit from it? Not on.

Another example is the huge number of sites offering wallpapers for mobile phones. "So what?" I hear you ask. So the gullible contributors to these sites don't appear to have the brains to realise that all they are doing by uploading other people's work to such sites is making a profit (either from the advertising or from the cost of the call to download the wallpaper, or both) for the person(s) running the site.

And don't get me started on blogs that make money from advertising clickthroughs and consist almost entirely of collections of other people's work without proper credit or links! At least if you have a copyright on your image, you get credit and maybe a visit to your own site ...

Oh, and don't forget about software (like Genuine Fractals, or even PS) that can make good quality enlargements. You could end up in the same position as someone I know, who posted a 1280 x 960 fractal art image to the Wallpaper section of deviantARt, and which I found offered for sale at sizes up to 40" x 56".

Yes, if someone really want to use someone else's image to make money for themselves then they'll get rid of the copyright, but in most cases they'll go for the easy win ie no copyright on the image and images that can be right-clicked and downloaded without having to faff about with screenshots and cropping.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Gill,

With regards to assuming that if an image were watermarked then theifs would probably just select an image that was unmarked, frankly, I have no idea if this assumption is right or wrong. Perhaps if it's a particulary good image for their purposes then they'd make an extra effort?

I'm just particularly conscious of not putting people off sales by ruining the image in the first place; kinda like the digital equivalent of someone showing up at a gallery to view your work - us hitting them over the head with a baseball bat - and then saying "hope you enjoy my images".

On the other hand though I do think it's important to have one's name associated with an image - in my case the border is the ideal place to put it, but I've also seen many images where it's done nicely on the image itself.

[Henrik]

With regards to copyright notices on images - I hope you don't mind (and I'll remove this if you do), but I just wanted to make a small point about the futility of it (took less than a minute) ...

There is something fishy going on. I cannot see your futility point anywhere - yet, in the quote, there is a link to an image... I'd like to see, what you talk about.

/Henrik

[Colin Southern]

There is something fishy going on. I cannot see your futility point anywhere - yet, in the quote, there is a link to an image... I'd like to see, what you talk about.

/Henrik

Hi Henrik,

Now I'm confused - no links that I'm aware of - where do they lead to?

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Henrik,

Now I'm confused - no links that I'm aware of - where do they lead to?

Hi Colin,

The only link I see is the one in your signature to your pbase site, perhaps Henrik means that?

It was just below the image you posted back, you know; the one where you had removed the enormous watermark.

Cheers,

[Henrik]

With regards to copyright notices on images - I hope you don't mind (and I'll remove this if you do), but I just wanted to make a small point about the futility of it (took less than a minute) ...

This quote ends with a (hidden) IMG-link: https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/for...&pictureid=301 (I guess you can try and see yourself.)

Anyhow - you mentioned, that you did something that took you less than a minute. I'd like to understand, what you meant by that?

[Dave Humphries]

This quote ends with a (hidden) IMG-link: https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/for...&pictureid=301 (I guess you can try and see yourself.)

Sorry Henrik,

I don't understand; can't you see your picture in Colin's post (but without the watermark)?
Can't you see it in your quoted reply posts either? (both of them)

The image tag is there for (as far as I know) all to see.
It probably won't work as a URL though.

Anyhow - you mentioned, that you did something that took you less than a minute. I'd like to understand, what you meant by that?

It was the removal of the watermark that took a minute.

Very confused,

[KentDub]

Anyhow - you mentioned, that you did something that took you less than a minute. I'd like to understand, what you meant by that?

Compare Colin's image to the first image on the post - Notice the watermark was removed. It was to prove a point that watermarks can be easially removed with anyone experienced with Photoshop. The particular type of watermark used in the origional image is the least noticable, but by far the easiest to remove. All it took was a mask on a curves adjustment layer to remove it.

Solid color watermarks provide more of a challenge to remove (as to remove all pixel data from below it). Watermarks with complex shapes are harder to remove. And finally, watermarks placed over complex areas of the image are harder to remove. As hard as you make a watermark to remove, two things remain certain: 1. Watermarks detract from the image, diminishing its emotional effect, and 2. It's never impossible to remove a watermark.

My first photoshop class in college we had a high-res scan of an old proof - back when they used to puch holes in the printed image. Our task was to digitally "remove" (fill in) the holes so it looked like a complete image. We were all blown away that we could fix the image so well that you would never have known their were holes punched in it. Now days almost anyone can accomplish the same feat.

If one is so concerned about people stealing their images, I sould strongly advise them to not post them on the internet! There is no DRM (Digital Rights Management) for pictures like there is for audio and video. Such a technology would not only have to be supported by major operating systems, but also web browsers and media devices (cell phones, digital picture frames, etc.). Of course, the biggest challenge in this is nothing stops the user from pressing print-screen on their keyboard! There are so many challenges to implimenting such a system that it has proven impossible so far. So that leads me back to my point: The only way to really "protect" the image is to not publish photos on the internet -- but where's the fun in that?

[Amberglass]

If one is so concerned about people stealing their images, I sould strongly advise them to not post them on the internet! There is no DRM (Digital Rights Management) for pictures like there is for audio and video. Such a technology would not only have to be supported by major operating systems, but also web browsers and media devices (cell phones, digital picture frames, etc.). Of course, the biggest challenge in this is nothing stops the user from pressing print-screen on their keyboard! There are so many challenges to implimenting such a system that it has proven impossible so far. So that leads me back to my point: The only way to really "protect" the image is to not publish photos on the internet -- but where's the fun in that?

Very true, Kent. If you're going to pursue someone, you better have the time and the finances. Images that I take that I consider worthy of exhibition; I print, mat, and frame them then have them shown in a gallery or shop for sale. I would never consider putting them on the internet since images can be so easily stolen. But even those prints have the possibility of becoming stolen; all the thief as to do is scan it with a high quality scanner. Perfect example is counterfeit money. You know you shouldn't and it's against the law, but some opportunist will also keep trying and perfecting.

[GillR]

Hi Gill,

With regards to assuming that if an image were watermarked then theifs would probably just select an image that was unmarked, frankly, I have no idea if this assumption is right or wrong. Perhaps if it's a particulary good image for their purposes then they'd make an extra effort?

Well, all I can say from experience is that I've seen non-watermarked images get nicked more often than watermarked ones. Interestingly, a conclusion some friends and I came to a while ago was that images with borders - even w/out watermarks - were less likely to be used elsewhere, which also adds, IMO, a little weight to the theory that "more work" = "less attractive". So to speak

I'm just particularly conscious of not putting people off sales by ruining the image in the first place; kinda like the digital equivalent of someone showing up at a gallery to view your work - us hitting them over the head with a baseball bat - and then saying "hope you enjoy my images".

LOL! Remind me not to visit your gallery when I make it to NZ

On the other hand though I do think it's important to have one's name associated with an image - in my case the border is the ideal place to put it, but I've also seen many images where it's done nicely on the image itself.

Some of my very early fractal artworks are still floating about the net, even though I don't display them anywhere myself now ... I kinda wish they didn't have my name associated with them anymore

Despite my little rant, I do agree with the statement made elsewhere that the only way to be safe is not to put your work up, and I'm not trying to suggest that people should be overly paranoid. But it's not only potential lost print sales that are the issue.

[Henrik]

I don't understand; can't you see your picture in Colin's post (but without the watermark)?
Can't you see it in your quoted reply posts either? (both of them)

Hi Dave,
No, I can't see Colin's image anywhere - But thank you very much for explaining!

This thread has enlightened me. Now I know that applying a watermark is not just applying a watermark. And "my" watermark didn't seem discrete to you... (I guess I shall be leaving aminus3 - for various reasons.) Gill tells us that watermarked or bordered pictures get less stolen than others. And Colin does his neat carpentry.

I guess all agree that it is fun to upload pictures to the internet, and so we'll all have to live with the anxiety of something going on, that we can't control.

A company called "Copysafe" offers a free service: "The free Copyscape service makes it easy to find copies of your content on the Web. Simply type in the address of your web page, and Copyscape will find sites that have copied your content without permission, as well as those that have quoted you." They offer banners - in various colors - to put on your website, see below.

Another way of telling people NOT to post the pictures elsewhere without express, written consent. - Or Gill will find you and pull your fingernails out.

Regards, Henrik