EAD Productions wrote:
Watermarking is a very good question....depends on what you are photographing, where you are in your career, and whether or not your photos have been published. I heard many people talking about established photographers not watermarking. They normally don't put "new" unpublished images up on the web (I was with jed root, as one of the "postees" put links for his site up....and I used to talk in the agency specifically about watermarking). Normally images are  published first, and many of them are beginning to watermark invisibly. It's a question of cost/risk. To the original "postee", it depends if you think your images are going to be claimed by someone else, or your reasons for putting all of your images out to view. Using myself as an example, I'm on MM to see if I can find a great new face before the main stream (and I'm an insomniac, and I'm temporarily addicted to the forums, now that I'm sick at home) so my images on here ARE watermarked, it might annoy some people, but that's how it goes (they aren't the ones hiring me . One of the most important things to do is actually to COPYRIGHT your photos. If you ever get into a lawsuit about images (which I have), you want to make sure that your images are COPYRIGHTED... that will make the biggest difference in court.

..=*^) - I've been laid up too for the last two weeks with a ripped ligament - fricking boring - never spent so much time on this site before..=*^)

Yes, the copyright issue is the most important one - I ALWAYS and that means ALWAYS - copyright my images BEFORE I PUBLISH THEM. Every shoot, every job - always. It's easy and cheap - and has paid me back many, many times over...

If you don't copyright your images, you probably will never be able to collect damages for unathorized use.

gsvb wrote:
Douglas
You asked a question
I answered it
I think Im qualified ?
If you dont want an honest answer to your Question ..Thats fine
But...Photographers..( good ones)
and Models ( pro ones)
Dont use watermarks.

Gary, clearly you've got a great portfolio and more experience than the vast majority present in this forum, but I have to wonder if the "qualified answer" would change if someone used your image without consent and without paying you.  If a test shot image, for which you were never paid, was sold to Walmart I suspect that you would be justifiably upset.  Not only were you not compensated, but you also have to protect you brand image and business interests.

I don't think anyone on this board or in this industry disagrees with the fact that a watermark does diminish an image's quality to some degree.  In a perfect world, watermarks would be unnecessary...of course we wouldn't need to trademark, copyright, or apply for patents either because no one would even consider taking credit or economic gain from another person's hard work.  But back on planet earth it's a different story.

A key difference between the top 1% of photographers and the rest of the "good ones" in the top 10% of the craft are the amount that they have to spend on legal staff.  If they could afford a full time team to protect & defend their interests it wouldn't be necessary, but welcome to the 21st century.  And of course, if they are hired for a magazine shoot, and those images become the property of the magazine, it becomes the magazine's responsibility.  Again, they keep a few lawyers on retainer for just such occurrence.

By the way, I personally know at least one photographer with a high six-figure income (damn near seven figure) that still watermarks images that he shoots in "non-contract jobs".  And he shoots people with reputations and experience that dwarf anyone that I've seen on Mayhem yet.  No offense, but when he tells me to cover my a$$, I'm gonna listen to him intently.

gsvb wrote:
Douglas
You asked a question
I answered it
I think Im qualified ?
If you dont want an honest answer to your Question ..Thats fine
But...Photographers..( good ones)
and Models ( pro ones)
Dont use watermarks.

Not true. And the ones that don't,  eventually get ripped off and sometimes impersonated (and sometimes don't even know it ). There are reasons both TO watermark, and NOT to watermark, and both are valid. Once you are established it's easier to recognize WHO took the photo, but if you are posting images online (say HERE on MM), it would be easy for someone to grab and use as their own, watermarking makes it more difficult, and will make people recognize the photographers work.
On the other side, there is no question that it "muddles" the photograph and causes interference. It's a cost/ benifit question.

WhiteBears Visions wrote:
I've had several models actually request I put my watermark on their images because they think it's sweet, even have one that wants it for a tattoo.

I give you credit WhiteBear...that is a great watermark.  Nobody likes them, but if you have to use them it's worth taking the time to do them right.  You've inpired me to put in more effort and come up with something that I really like.

Thank you!

blacquejack wrote:
watermarks are very annoying, everytime I have tried it, i feel it kills the image

Watermarks are annoying and may kill a single image, but trying to recover damages from stolen images kills the passion to make future images.  Use them when you must, and realize that when you sell an image it's no longer necessary and therefore won't kill the image.

I think we would all prefer a world without watermarks, but quite frankly I don't care if a hundred million people on the internet (who see it for free) feel that it damages the image.  If they can't see past it, they likely are not sophisticated enough to be able to purchase the image anyway.  For those that do purchase the image, for whatever us, I will gladly provide a watermark free image.

Henri3 wrote:
Glad to see this thread- I recently saw some of my nudes on a high quality,high profile site- totally without any credit. Sent me through the roof. Started watermarking images that same day with digital watermarks as well.
   The editor easily agreed to replace my images with watermarked ones- I said either that or pull the images entirely. (They were submitted by the model)  But never again will I release web images without a logo/copyright. I've been laserprinting contact info on the back of every print I give models for some time now.
   Don't really like using watermarks, but it's advertising I can't afford to pass up, done in as discreet a manner as possible.

Glad that worked out so well for you in the end, the webmaster could have given you a hard time, esspecially if they were posted by the model (well, I guess a lot depends on the release you used but still, you are lucky it went so smoothly).

thanks for the reply.