Watermarking - Am I Doing It Right?

[MolassesLass]

Should I cover more of the image?

[Ashanali]

Everyone has a different way of doing it and for different reasons.

That looks fine to me

[redangel]

Not wanting to hijack but how does one add a watermark, and save the same for further images???

[Firestone]

Not wanting to hijack but how does one add a watermark, and save the same for further images???

Great question I would also love to know how to that

[kja]

Make it a brush or an action in Photoshop

You can then make the action a droplet in Lightroom.

Lots of tutorials online and I think there's one around here somewhere, too.

[16Paws]

If you are serious about protecting your artwork I would suggest you only display low quality versions and/or increase the size and complexity of the watermark to make it more diffcult to remove.

10 mins later...

*edit* nice art

Edited March 18, 2010 by 16Paws

[MolassesLass]

I thought it was low quality - saved at JPG 80% - do I need to go lower?

I don't understand what you mean by "more complex" though I suspected a single colour might be easy to remove (something about layers?). What else can I do?

[16Paws]

I really don't know much about watermarks but I'm guessing anyone with decent photoshop skills and the determination could remove any wartermark from any image. It probably wouldn't hurt doing a google search on methods and possibly visiting other art sites to see how their images are protected.

To make a watermark more difficult to remove you would need to cover areas of the image which cannot be easily replicated or cloned from another area of the image.

[MolassesLass]

So like this would make it harder?

ETA: And thanks for the nice comment on it.

Edited March 18, 2010 by molasseslass

[redangel]

only have lightroom and paintshop pro...google here I come......

[16Paws]

That would make it much more difficult to remove the watermark and it's still subtle enough that you get a good idea of how the art looks. You may find that different watermarks work fro different images.

Edited March 18, 2010 by 16Paws

[MolassesLass]

Thanks heaps. Helps that I have no spelling mistake this time too.

Edited March 18, 2010 by molasseslass

[16Paws]

I didn't notice the typo! Maybe you could explain that the typo is so you can tell genuine art from fake

[altheau]

I would be careful with watermarks, to much and alot of people are turned off

I don't use them at all, because if you are producing something that people want to steal they will any way. If you have to have a water mark, consider a discreate one.

I think it is a balancing act, but most professionals I have visited seem to have discreate ones. The only ones I have seen that do not are on snow ski photographers (they take a photo of you on snow skiing, then you can go down to their store in the resort and get prints of your photo for monies)

[rubiton]

I stick them right across the centre of the image. If someone wants to pinch it and use it as a background then my name will slowly burn into their screen (well thats my thought or they can just stare at my name across it). The previous version was a bit stronger but still works I can still see clearly which are my pinched photos on Facebook!