Watermark/Signing Client Photos

Apart from offering a certain number of printed photos and some in high resolution on CD which will allow the client to print as chosen, I also want to offer a majority of the edited photos in much lower resolution for web use like Facebook, Flickr etc. etc.

Would it make sense to watermark/sign these lower res imageg or would you not ever watermark/sign the images provided to the client.

Given the market here, the client is more likely than not to disregard everything and try to print off these low resolution images so I was thinking of using a signature at a selected corner to deter from printing and also a sort of advertisement. Is there a good low resolution but enough for web use that would print rather bad?

It's pointless to try to control the use of images by low resolution. People absolutely aren't willing to pay you for a print will print what they want to print, and they'll live with a bad print. If you know your market there and fully expect your work to be printed without your license, then price it accordingly, brand it, and sell work that can stand being printed.

It's a difficult market. There's two groups of professional photographers, stay at home wives with uber rich hubbys and cheap labour photographers from photo studios who fire random images and no post processing. Their rates are all over the place, some who are equally good as the other charge half or double the rate.

I've not started offering my services just yet, but it's difficult getting the pricing right. I don't want to come in too low and have to stick with it, or come in high and blow my chances. The crowd is weird here, willing to get rubbish photos as long as it's cheaper (it's that bad, eg. the average wedding photo budget is approx $650 for photography AND a full album of 4x6 prints).

I was thinking of offering a free single print for a portrait session and 3-5 full resolution printables as chosen by the customer. I don't want them to not have the other 20-30 photos that will come through from the session so though of offering them as low res on CD but watermarked.

Others here offer ALL their pictures in full res on CD. Because of the nature of how they work there is no one offering session + pay for prints. No one pays separately for prints so although I intend to have that as an option, I don't want to sell myself short offering all passed photographs as full resolution on CD. A bit stuck...

depends on how they are paying.

If the paycheck has a comma in it, chances are they are getting unwatermarked images. If the paycheck won't cover a monthly cell phone bill, chances are it has a watermark on it of some sort.

I always provide a copy of images in low res watermarked and request that clients use those images to post on facebook and such. The watermark is unobtrusive and not in their faces and such - just in the corner. If you make it so it doesn't really interfere with viewing the image, people will more likely use those images. I do provide unwatermarked images as digital is my business model and I don't really do prints.

Numenorean wrote in post #13895490
I always provide a copy of images in low res watermarked and request that clients use those images to post on facebook and such. The watermark is unobtrusive and not in their faces and such - just in the corner. If you make it so it doesn't really interfere with viewing the image, people will more likely use those images. I do provide unwatermarked images as digital is my business model and I don't really do prints.

This sound like pretty much what I want to offer. The offering of prints here is next to non existant and I'm still thinking of providing a single free framed print to get that leverage over what others offer. Thanks for the info.

Numenorean wrote in post #13895490
I always provide a copy of images in low res watermarked and request that clients use those images to post on facebook and such. The watermark is unobtrusive and not in their faces and such - just in the corner. If you make it so it doesn't really interfere with viewing the image, people will more likely use those images. I do provide unwatermarked images as digital is my business model and I don't really do prints.

I make a personal distinction between "watermarking" (which is specifically a large, obtrusive mark deliberately intended to interfere with the enjoyment of the image) and "branding" (which is is an unobtrusive logo that identifies my studio but does not interfere with the images' enjoyment).

In my work, I rarely have to "watermark" anything, but virtually all the digital and print images I sell to personal-commission clients are branded. My commercial work bears no markings on the image at all.

RDKirk wrote in post #13896333
I make a personal distinction between "watermarking" (which is specifically a large, obtrusive mark deliberately intended to interfere with the enjoyment of the image) and "branding" (which is is an unobtrusive logo that identifies my studio but does not interfere with the images' enjoyment).

In my work, I rarely have to "watermark" anything, but virtually all the digital and print images I sell to personal-commission clients are branded. My commercial work bears no markings on the image at all.

True, I actually meant to say branding. People nowadays tend to associate a watermark as the signature one would leave in the corner (which is incorrect but I though would garner a better response) a totally unobtrusive signature in the corner.