Does anyone here watermark their Masterpieces (keepers) habitually?
I know how to do it but I'm wondering what is "best" in terms of:
e.g. 40%, medium-small, avatar, complex:
By "best" I mean least likely to be stolen or scraped - rather than most pretty-looking on a device.
These days, is it even worth it ?!!
All good questions
I am thinking of a way of subtly changing a few pixels in a non visible way (by software) as a means of being able to prove an image was mine. But I am not in the position to need to do that yet. As you say, is it worth it...
I've started watermarking again, mainly to poison the well for generative AI scrapers. I tend to fill the width at the bottom of the photo with a text based watermark at a high (70ish%) opacity.
Any particular software?
I would write it myself - but I imagine there would be some open source out there
Over the years I have so many pictures stolen from my blog, or before in pre digital times published without my permission, that I just do not care anymore.
A few years ago I went into a bookshop and opened a local guidebook, and found the author had generously scraped my blog. The publisher told me they did not pay for photography, and the author had told the editor that the pictures were taken by him. I could not be bothered to go down the legal road for such small pickings. I sent prints of the originals to the publisher, so I guess the author had some explaining to do.
A local council scraped my blog to illustrate a couple of medieval castles in their comune, and a site dealing with medieval history has also visited my Blog to stock up on pictures.
Occasionally a student will Email me to ask permission to use a picure in a thesis. I got a tee shirt for a picture used in an exhibition concerning mazes, in Vienna a few years ago, after they asked permission.
Gone are the days when a check would arrive in the post for published pictures, often without asking, or knowing that a press release picture had been published.
I do not earn money from photography anymore and with the current prices, it is not worth the bother to chase picture thieves for money. It would be a distraction from my more remunerative Engineering work. Unless you are commissioned to photograph something, photographs have close to zero commercial value. I have recently donated my performing arts archive to our provincial theatre's archive. I made digital scans of the things that interested me first.
I believe watermarking ruins the visual impact of any picture.
I do not watermark my images (I haven't taken any images of commercial value anyway :)).
What is your goal in watermarking?
If you wan't to avoid reusing your images then you have to embedd some visible, not very distracting and hard to remove semi-transparent sign (like in xpatUSA image). Extreme examples are found eg on Shutterstock.
If you wan't to prove that stolen images are yours, then Bryan idea about the "way of subtly changing a few pixels in a non visible way" is usable, but you have to create image altering algorithm, allowing read information even after image editing (resize, resample, soften-sharpen, jpeg recompression etc). This is usually called "steganography" and I'm sure there exist more or less good algorithms and software for that. (I know that this is in practically unbreakable way done for audio (Cinavia), no information about imaging).
Thanks for responding, gents. I'm playing with the idea right now with no clear goal in mind.
As to:
- Opacity
- Relative Size
- Type e.g. Logo, Avatar, Text
- Complexity
Any input is welcome ...
All locks are from honest people. This watermark is so easy to remove if somebody really needs to.
I see.
Please comment with respect to this list rather than by a single blunt statement:
I replied to your question "is it even worth it?" If watermark is irrelevant, this list is irrelevant. It made sense on prints though.
I see.
I thought that your comment was about the example that I posted.
It's worth keeping what you say in mind. At the end of the day is it worth the hassle and time?
Some people have nice low opacity watermarks that I don't find bothersome - and they can be artistic. Some do have garish watermarks that do ruin both the visual and feeling of the image.
My idea is that it's a label not so much to define ownership but to name the creator.
