Another watermark attempt

Posted on by

I’ve struggled with the whole idea of watermarking my work. Part of me wants to create the images, and then just give them freely to the people who care. Part of me wants to be recognized for my work. But, like the image of my brand-new nephew, I really don’t want anyone to think I’m capitalizing on my sister-in-law having a baby just so I can put my name all over his image.

And then there are musicians. I know I owe a lot of my final images to them, their facial expressions, their passion, their willingness to perform on stage, etc. It almost feels wrong to push my name over their face.

But by the same token, I realize that I do have some talent, and I would like to be recognized for it. I’ve seen my images copied and reshared without any link back or attribution to me. And when 12-year-olds do that, I’m cool with it. But it would be nice if their parents (and their friends’ parents) knew how to get in touch with me if they wanted to.

So I want a simple watermark. And I’ve contemplated paying someone to do it right, but before I could do that, I had to make an attempt my self, and thereby work out my own requirements for what I want in a watermark.

  • It must be black and white. I do too much shooting in monochrome to have a color watermark.
  • It must be simple, even understated. My watermark isn’t entirely about my ego, and I’d rather it not be the first thing someone sees in the image.
  • It must be visible in Facebook.
  • Ideally, it should be visible on a mobile device, but I’m not sure that will work without it being over-the-top big.
  • It must work in a variety of lighting/background situations

I’ve decided to try an upper-left corner logo for now, primarily because it works for the majority of my images, and is just a little bit different, without, I hope, looking gimicky.

In playing with the watermark, the one challenging situation I’ve come across is trees. I can see my watermark in the image above, but it is definitely not easy to see or read. I think I’m OK with that for now.

The other major detail is that I’m only using the watermark for my own publishing. If I give the images to someone, they will (probably) get them without the watermark. When I make prints for my sister-in-law–definitely no watermark. So this really is only for on-line publishing.

What do you think? Please leave a comment here or on Facebook. I really would like your thoughts on watermarking in general, mine specifically, or whatever.

Thanks

2 thoughts on “Another watermark attempt”

  1. If I wasn’t viewing the shot in the context of your blog I would totally have missed the watermark in the light and dark of the leaves on the last shot. The mark was not at all intrusive on all the other shots, so it seems to meet your “understated” desire. I think I would like to see it a little bolder and maybe design it in multiple forms to fit whatever corner of the shot is best suited. Your photography deserves to be recognized!

  2. I don’t think what you have here is technically a watermark. A watermark is more of a semi-transparent logo that would stretch across much of the image to render it useless to someone looking to steal it. Seems like you just want credit in your photos, understandably. I don’t know that the curved upper-left thing really serves you. I would suggest a simple horizontal text toward the bottom-right (or wherever it’s clearly visible yet unobtrusive). Yes, everyone does that. But there’s a reason everyone does that! I would say, do that :)