Watermark opinions please

I never started out with the intention of selling my photos but I've been taking pics for about 4 years now for a whippet racing club to help raise their profile, and it's worked. I must have taken thousands of pics for them and never sold one. I've decided to offer them for sale now if people want them, I'll still display them on the clubs page for free, but now I'm adding a watermark. This is unfamiliar territory for me. A friend designed several for me. I want the photo to be clearly visible, but the watermark to just intrude enough so that if they want a copy of the photo they will buy it. I would like opinions on what I've put on.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/32012294@N02/8​048721223/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/32012294@N02/8​048666332/

anyone, anyone at all?

I don't think its bad. Doesn't ruin the pictures enough to decide if you like it. Is there anyway to protect the image, or show it in a large thumbnail without and then the link opens to the watermarked photo.

I've seen a few that are like that, so just another option

For me the watermark is not dark enough. I'm sure there are people that would be fine having that photo on their desktop or posting it to facebook as watermarked. If I don't look closely, I might not notice the watermark on photo 2. That's my opinion.

And on a side note be patient. You made your post then just 10 minutes later posted again asking for opinions? Geez. Replies and opinions might come in over days not minutes!

I like the watermark design. But it's the 1st thing I see. That's a good thing and a bad thing. Mission accomplished.

My thoughts on watermarks has evolved. I'm now at the point where the promotional benefits outweighs someone stealing it so I stopped putting it in the middle. I also went to a signature style so hopefully it reminds people this is art.

The reason I don't worry about stealing is because someone really intent on using my photo without my permission either knows how to get around the watermark or doesn't care, the watermark itself doesn't help me find them on the web and just because there's a mark doesn't mean someone looking at it will notify me. The people who got caught that I've heard of recently were because visitors recognized the photo or style and then notified the owner. So, I'd rather be known for a style or image than my mark. Also, unless it's registered the damages I could try to recover is very small. I haven't full embraced registering but I'm headed that way.

There's an interesting video on youtube about it. http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=cFpY88lbnA0&t​=23m42s

Cheers

Whippeticious wrote in post #15071956
anyone, anyone at all?

I think your watermark does the job but I would make it a little more intrusive, perhaps darker

i like it, not too intrusive and yet still there

I agree with Rick...probably one of the better watermarks I have seen.

However, personally I think Watermarks should only be used where work is being shown prior to sale for work that is published on sharing sites I think only a small copyright notice in a corner is required as anything else would seem to contradict the sharing concept/idea.

birderman wrote in post #15079050
I agree with Rick...probably one of the better watermarks I have seen.

However, personally I think Watermarks should only be used where work is being shown prior to sale for work that is published on sharing sites I think only a small copyright notice in a corner is required as anything else would seem to contradict the sharing concept/idea.

I'm having trouble understanding what you mean. I think you might have meant to put a full stop somewhere. I've put a smiley where I think you meant the sentence to end.

Anyway, the thing is, I'm not really looking to sell my work, it's just that I've been taking literally thousands of photos for 2 of these racing clubs purely with the intention of helping the clubs to get more notice, and therefore more members. I am sure people have been copying them so I'm at the point where I'm still happy to help the club but if people like the photos so much then they are welcome to buy them. The watermark still allows the photos to be seen by all and sundry, it just discourages them from taking them, well, I hope it does. If I was a fair dinkum photographer, with a web site, I'd probably go about watermarking differently but these are just displayed on facebook.
thanks everyone for your comments.

As full protection goes, this is a tad soft. Personally I would have gone with something that would embed a little more contrast, at least in the inner and outer rings, and possibly the edge of the lettering. As it is, I should be able to spend a bit of time in photoshop to clean much of that up and hide it even more for minor work.

As advertising, I think it could work better as the current one is somewhat hard to read quickly.

Personally I would be tempted to go with a per-image marking scheme. Takes a little more of your time to start, but once you have a few templates to run with it flows a little easier.

For example, the top one just begs to have a curved upper and lower banner to carry the club and photographer's info. The second photo begs for a nice emblem up in the top right. If laid out you can do them such that they are very awkward to cut out of the image without either leaving obvious traces of the crop, or having to crop out more detail of the subject. But at the same time it does double duty of showing off the info of yourself and the club.