Watermarking in galleries: Yes/No?

[aileen]

Hi Everyone,
I'm in the process of setting up a new gallery and am moving from Smugmug to Zenfolio. I'm not a pro, but a keen amateur photographer (and wannabe pro in my dreams!) who does the odd wedding and who likes landscapes and animals. I want to direct occasional future clients and friends to my website to show them examples of my photography. Questions:
1. Should I watermark my photos or would it be seen as too 'commercial', given that I'm not pro? I checked some of the popular zenfolio sites and not many photos seem to be watermarked. I've only uploaded small files, around 300 - 900kb, so I don't think there's much risk but I'm new to this...
2. If you say I should watermark, should I watermark all photos or just the best ones? 3. If I should watermark, can anyone using Zenfolio tell me how to create a small/discreet watermark that will sit along the bottom of the photo, rather than the huge ones that Zenfolio offers? I've tried to re-size them but I'm assuming you can't and the Zenfolio site says you need to create new watermarks in a special format which I have no idea about.

Thanks a bunch... I'll send you the link to the site once it's up and running so that you can critique it and my photos!
Aileen

[bobbyz]

OK. Here is my take.

You can setup a portfoio section where you can show your stuff without water marks.Then for showing proofs, you can put small water mark. Using watermarks with Zenfolio is quite easy.

For my sports shots, I have water marks on my print ready files. Other folks can see small size. Since I have watermark in the middle, I guess I will enable viewing of bigger files and they look better on bigger monitors. These are printready files so clients can order prints from them if they want.

For my regular day to day stuff, I have no water marks.