Photos and Watermarks and Etiquette and Policy

[ShopShoe]

I have reached the point where I am considering adding a watermark to the photos I post here.

My understanding is that I retain rights to my photos, but that HMEM also gets rights to all of them that are posted here: I have no problem with this as I can always control what I decide to post. I am concerned primarily with someone else taking credit for my work, even if my work is not earthshaking.

Anyway, Is it appropriate to use a Watermark formatted as:

"ShopShoe"

"Copyright ShopShoe"

"ShopShoe for HMEM"

I am also considering the idea of reworking my avatar to be part of a watermark.

This only applies to what I post here or perhaps for personal portfolio use. Unwatermarked versions might be used for other purposes.

--ShopShoe

 

[terrywerm]

I am no lawyer, but as I understand it, you can claim copyright on any of your work if it is truly yours, but enforcing that copyright is another story altogether. I watermark my photos, even though I don't post many. Secondly, I store my photos on my own web server and simply link to them. In this way I can retain all legal right to them and nobody else can make any claims on them. As I understand it, this forum needs to have copyright to your photos (if you store them here) to be able to distribute them to other viewers and it is probably more of a CYA thing rather than anyone wanting to steal your pics. The owners of this forum would be the last ones that I would worry about. Unscrupulous viewers are an entirely different story, however, and watermarking your pics is an excellent way to keep someone from claiming your photos or work as their own. Make sure that your watermark is large and runs across the detail area of the photo, otherwise a photo rustler can just crop your photo and claim it as his own. I keep my watermark pretty dim. It's bright enough to be visible, but dim enough to not detract too much from the details.

 

[sssfox]

Have you seen this?

http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/images/searchbyimage.html

It lets you look for the same picture anywhere on the internet.
You can just right-click on an image and tell it to look for it.
You can tell if someone has posted your image someplace else.
It's pretty nifty.

Steve Fox

 

[Lakc]

I was thinking one of the creative commons licenses like CC-ND or CC-NC, but a lot of research needs to go into that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_commons

As you can guess, there are a lot more productive things to research at the moment.

 

[rodw]

It's not about claiming copyright. if you create it, copyright is yours.

I don't know what the forum requires but to my mind you should be providing the forum with a limited license to use your images if they are posted here. You would not be assigning ownership of photos to the forum. I store mine on Photobucket centrally and not on other servers. I tried keeping them on my own server but it did become a bit of a hassle.

Personally, I hate large watermarks, it is very off-putting and occasionally I stop reading a thread that uses them. even small ones end up obscuring something I want to see if they are not placed in a sensible position for the individual photo, not just stamped on everything. I would be completing the copyright fields in the EXIF data and leaving it at that but there are smarter digital rights solutions that locks stuff in that proves it is your image without tampering with the image.

But as said, if you want to claim copyright, you need to enforce it and there is an interesting saga about an Aussie who looked at some stuff Microsoft was doing that he thought infringed his patent rights. he knew he had to enforce his patent and knew the enormity of the task, But enforce it he did and won... but the appeal process probably will go on for years....

So my message is if you are not taking photos for a living, why bother wasting time with this stuff!

The whole intent of a post is to use forums to share information and often to get advice on what to do. Once posted on the net, it is there for all the world to see.

If you own the copyright there is nothing to stop you from selling another limited license to use the image to say a magazine for use in an article you or somebody else writes. In my experience, magazines want exclusivity for a fixed period, say 12 months.

We should not get to precious about copyright of photos on public forums. If they are that precious, then don't publish them on the web, sell them to someone or experience the joy of sharing!

 

[starnovice]

I agree with Rod! This forum is about sharing. I really hope you will find it within yourselves to join in that selfless sharing. The reality is your photos don't have much value outside this forum where it is priceless.

 

[ShopShoe]

UPDATE 2-19-2013

Thank you everyone for your input. the trend of discussion so far is pretty much where I am at the present. I posted this question mainly because it has been on my mind from time to time and I was interested in what you all thought. I think I'll delay any decision for awhile. I do like the friendly attitude of sharing here and I don't want to change that culture.

Thanks again for helping me think through this issue.

--ShopShoe

 

[Jtrain]

Not that I would probably do it, but how are water marks put onto photos?
John

 

[n4zou]

Not that I would probably do it, but how are water marks put onto photos?
John

Any good photo editing software will let you watermark a picture. GIMP is free and available for all operating systems (not just Linux).
It's easy to add a watermark to any picture. Simply create your custom watermark in GIMP. It can be as simple as a single line of text or as complicated as your skill will allow. After you have created your watermark and saved it as a picture file of your choice all you need do is open the picture in GIMP you want to watermark, open the file containing your watermark, and then set the level of transparency and place it over the picture as a separate Layer. Then save the (modified) picture. Once you've done it a couple of times you can watermark your pictures in just a few seconds.

http://www.gimp.org/

 

[TorontoBuilder]

I will weigh in with my own two cents as a serious amateur photographer who uses photos on blogs and forums almost daily, and who receives requests to use his photographic work on occasion...

Firstly, exactly 99.9999% of all photos taken by amateurs to accompany blog or forum posts has zero monetary value outside of the aggregate value to the forum owner and the knowledge value to the reader. That means no one really wants to steal your work and reuse it to make money.

Watermarking can take time if you are amateur who doesn't have automated watermark process, and often watermarks can obscure what you want the photo to illustrate, so why bother? I'd expect most readers here who want to use your image on their own site to help illustrate a technique are likely to ask your permission anyway... this is a close community.

Personally, I do not watermark my images that I post to the typical forums or blogs or restrict others from using my images... I believe in shared knowledge and ideas which is the purpose of sites such as this.

Only rarely when I post images as part of a specific commercial project, or if I post a studio type professional image of a model do I restrict copyright. In those cases I mostly desire the image attribution when it is used, but sometimes it is necessary to ensure that if an image is marketable that I share in the monetization of the image. So sometimes I use a creative commons license and copyright notice included in the image, other times I use a fullblown restricted copyrigh, but again only in special cases.

In those cases I use Photoshop to apply my watermark layer and I use digimarc service and filter to embed digital rights information in the file which may be tracked on the internet as well.

If you want to add watermark, find any image editing software and add text using a separate image layer with your copyright symbol year and name. Use either white or black text to contrast with the background image. Set layer opacity between 50 to 75%. Position layer where you like... (such as lower left corner) and save image. The image itself is not damaged using the layers technique. In my attached photo I used Photoshop to add two separate text layers as an example... When I send proofs to someone I may enlarge and place the copyright diagonally over the image so the recipient doesn't try to use these images as the final image... unedited low res images print like crap.

It is easiest to use picasa... makes posting images easy too.

Adding watermarks to photos

You can help protect your images by adding a watermark to your photos. A watermark in Picasa is white text that's added to the lower-right corner of photos during the export or upload process. To add a watermark to a photo, please use the following steps:

During export

Select the photos you'd like to export.
Click the Export button in the Photo Tray.
Select the 'Add a watermark' checkbox.
In the watermark box, enter your watermark text.
Click OK. Your photos will be exported with your watermark in place.
While uploading

Before you upload, click Tools > Options (Windows) or Picasa > Preferences (Mac).
Select the Picasa Web Albums or Google+ Photos tab.
Select the 'Add a watermark for all uploads' checkbox.
In the watermark box, enter your watermark text.
Click OK. All uploaded photos will possess your chosen watermark.
Picasa will never make changes to your original photo file. Exporting and uploading pictures with edits or watermarks applied creates an edited JPG copy of the original photo.

You can see how the one copyright notice obscures the grooms face making it next to impossible for the bride and groom to view the image to select printed copies. It could just as easily have been the interface between the work piece and cutter that was obscured... On the other hand the lower right copyright could easily be cropped out of the image if someone wanted.... Even with copyright infringement you need to know about it, and prove damages and that the person benefited financially if you wish to sue for any real compensation... I guarantee that no one here can afford the costs of enforcement. So again, why bother.