Watermarking Your Images: Good or Bad?

Have you ever noticed why so many images that you search on the web for desktop wallpaper or other creative uses have an opaque or semi-transparent label or copyright notices imprinted digitally on them?

Why is that ‘thing’ there? Who puts it there? Should you use it too? Read on to find out.

Watermark and What Does It Do?

A watermark is an image (somewhat transparent) superimposed or overlaid on another image.

Watermark can be used for three chief purposes –

1. to brand your photos – Watermark acts as your logo or signature. When users access your high resolution images or wallpapers they also get to see your logo. By putting your company logo or your own name, you can let people can find out who took that picture.

2. to prevent them from theft – Many photographers and websites use watermark for copyright protection. The idea behind is simple; Nobody likes their images to be used by anyone else on the web (not without their permission at least). To prevent people from re-branding a photograph as their own, you can use a watermark

Note: Many professional Photoshop or image editing software users can still remove the watermark by cropping, cloning, or other means, if they want, so it is not exactly a fool-proof thing, but still not everyone has those ‘master’ skills.

3. to promote your self – This further gets integrated with social networking sites as people can find you and check out more of your images on Facebook or Twitter by seeing the logo. That makes it a free way of advertising your stock free images for commercial users

Size and Placement

Why do we create photos? To capture, preserve and show the moments of life for our own and other people’s enjoyment, right?
Now imagine a big-arse logo on top of your hd image set as hd desktop backgrounds on your computer screen. Do we need to say more? You get the picture, right?

(FIG: AN EXAMPLE OF A REALLY BAD WATERMARK)

It will look ANNOYING. Why even BOTHER to put it up in the first place!

• An annoying watermark instantly takes away the experience of witnessing a beautiful or pretty picture and turn it to crap. Watermarks should be small and low-profile. They should not distract a viewer from the subject of the photograph.

• Ideally the opacity of your watermark should be set at 50% or less and they should be tucked away to a corner. You can create them using Microsoft paint on Windows OS, image viewer on Mac OS, Corel Draw, Adobe Photoshop or any other editing software of your choice.

• Try and keep the watermark constant and placed in the same position in each image, unless of course its hindering a subject or focus area.

• If you are running a website or you are an avid photographer who doesn’t have good graphic designing skills, then it’s always better to hire a graphics designer to make a logo for you.

 (FIG: WATERMARK CAN ALTER THE LOOK OF YOUR IMAGE WHEN USED INCORRECTLY BUT PROMOTE YOUR BRAND WHEN USED RIGHTLY)

So, is it a Good or a Bad Idea?

Honestly, there’s no right or wrong answer to this. It is up to you as an artist, as a photographer to decide the pros and cons here. Its about how you choose to do it and what you want to accomplish.

Watermarks are good as Proofs for some desktop wallpapers or other special photographs for your clients that you post online. You can experiment with different styles for your watermark and see how it goes taking in view their consistency.

On the other hand, watermarks are distracting to the composition and mood of photos. Plus, they can be time-consuming especially when you have a lot of stuff to churn out.

People are also not very likely to share boldly or shabbily watermarked images on social networking websites.

Lots of photographers don’t watermark as they feel its unnecessary. Other also feel that watermarking a photo might make their pictures look cheap or make them look arrogant.

What do you feel about watermarking on images? Would you do it with your pictures? Yes or No. Please feel free to share your views in the comments section.

Source : https://sabakuch.com/blog/2017/07/03/watermarking-images-good-bad/