Photo Watermarks

[dhracer88]

All right, I've been at this photo-website thing for a little over a month now. Now that I've figured out my website, I'm wondering what kind of watermark/copyright looks most professional. My original ones looked cool for a minute--all clear and plastic looking, but then I realized they sucked. Then I went for the simple clean(ish) text look. Yesterday I attempted the grey box with the website address in it (see May 14, 2005 thread for some examples).

What I'm wondering is what looks best and doesn't distract from the picture, aside from not watermarking it in the first place. What are your thoughts? What do you prefer?

Thanks for the input, I want to add some new photos, but I don't want to have to change the watermark for 20 something when a new idea comes along.

JM

 

[dhracer88]

I would like to know what you prefer, simple text or the grey box.

I would really appreciate your comments; I'm going to be overhauling my gallery and updating real soon. Thank you,
JM

 

[mad jew]

How about a compromise? I find that grey writing gives the best between both worlds in being subtle enough to not ruin the image whilst ensuring that if people use your image, it's obvious enough to see who owns it.

 

[jsw]

I like the gray text as well - just don't be so subtle (i.e., small and corner-oriented) that a simple crop will remove it and still effectively leave the photo intact.

 

[mkrishnan]

Of the ones in the link you provided in your second reply, JM, I like the original grey box with white text style the best. I agree that it should be relatively low-impact, but I personally also like something you can apply with fair consistency. If you use the grey box, perhaps you can give it an intermediate transparency, so that on the one hand, it will always be legible (and not obscured when the background is already close to white in that part of the picture), and on the other hand is not overbearing (if it has 100% opacity).

Some people go as far as to put transparent watermark text in big letters across the middle of the picture, which guarantees that no one can crop it out...I dunno. To me, unless you have some really huge reason to be concerned about image theft, I wouldn't go that far. Especially if you're not posting full-rezzies on the web. Cuz how much damage, after all, is someone going to do you with a sub megapixel version of your image, cropped in a not-necessarily-pleasing way to get rid of your watermark?

Anyway, I chose what I chose more for aesthetics than anything else. It works great everywhere but here (because MR has a white background!). All my images at PBase have been stamped.

 

[wdlove]

I really like your photos especially the dogs. Are they your dogs? The gray water color looks good.

 

[dhracer88]

Thanks everyone for your responses. Sorry I was so hostile in the second post . I think I'll try out the grey text idea and see if it works. If not, I'll go with the grey box, with my newly acquired domain name. I upgraded my free account at CJB, so I've got to work on getting it all set up still.

I don't understand the big copyright thing that a lot of people do, unless it is like bhphoto for a product. This photographer makes his images hard to view because he watermarked 'em so much.

And wdlove, most of the dogs (Raquel, Henry, Rosie, Shep, Bristol, Shadow, Mocha) are my own, with the rest being my family's. We live in the country . For a vague explanation...see here for details. Thanks again everyone for responding, I had almost given up hope...Unfortunately, I've got to go through all those pictures, in addition to the 2,000 I need to sort through (to place on the site), and apply a new watermark. Some of my resizing didn't turn out so well, but I've got plenty of time to do it (last class ended yesterday!). Hopefully the problem my server's been having with minigal will be fixed, then I can get a clean gallery up (with tons more images )

Once again, thanks everyone.

 

[killuminati]

I love that picture you have of that frog. Is there any way I could get it to use as my background?

 

[dhracer88]

I am not sure if I'll provide background's yet; once my nature section picks up (when I scan some of my film pictures), and when I start selling a few pictures, I probably won't allow it, but I feel like sharing...killuminati, you've got my permission to use the small frog picture as your background, but I haven't decided if I'll get you a bigger picture...

Thanks everyopne for the input, I kind of went with three choices: white text (60-85% opacity), black/grey text, and white text with a grey box (black @ 20% opacity). I made them a lot more subtle though.