Watermark idea...

OK, I know that a large part of you agree, as do I, that people are going to take your images regardless of what you do. So many are in agreement that one should just watermark with your web address, and/or email and/or phone number to get free advertising when they do steal your images and repost them on fb, etc.

I find 'stolen' images of mine almost everyday, usually on fb and a lot of times the way they take them is they are taking pictures of the images on the monitor with their cell phones... which of course radically degrades the quality... which in turn is a bad reflection on me/my company especially when my company name/copyright is plastered across the image.

A new thought occurred to me today. I sell my images, prints, downloads, etc. from galleries I create on my site. Therefore the images will always reside in a specific gallery. So what if the watermark somehow indicated the web address of the gallery where it resides and if anyone sees it posted anywhere else that it indicates it was obtained by violating copyright laws.....

So something like:

Image stolen from
www.companyname.com
if not displayed or linked
to this address

Of course I would love a shorter wording and less intrusive means to do this.. which is why I am writing the idea here, think out loud if you will and hoping someone can help me develop something along these lines.

The idea being that some people will still take the images and not care. But I think others will think twice if the watermark might make it obvious that they stole it. Maybe, maybe not. Thoughts?

Alienates potential customer, makes you look mean. Just a regular watermark is good enough IMHO, if you want people to buy the image just make the watermark suitably intrusive.

See that's the problem. I HAVE been using regular watermark and find stolen images nearly everyday and sales are VERY low. I am at a loss at what to do...

Stop posting them online then.

100% of my print sales are online. I am an event/on location photographer, no studio.

I find the opposite. I invite customers to like my fb page and in return give them a 720px image for free. The vast majority of customers liking my fb page place orders and then spread the word for me. These are mainly images from running races, triathlons, marathons etc. I don't worry about w/m them but I sometimes add a race logo. If you're going to shoot digital I say embrace it and make it work for you.

Your watermark is quite light. You could try putting "proof" on it diagonally a bunch of times, like my proofing system does, but increase the opacity.

Check out my system here, which also disables right click to make it difficult to save the image. Yours does too.

OT: why does your website require me to enter my email address?

NeoSoulPhoto wrote in post #11215127
OT: why does your website require me to enter my email address?

Because Exposure Manager enables me to track emails and send email blasts to customers offereing them things like coupon codes for discounts as well as notify then as a pending closing of a gallery, etc. I was against it at first because I thought it would drive people away. But EM made a good point that the people who refuse to input their email are the same people who will never order. I also give them an opt-out option at the bottom of every email blast. Most clients don't mind it and appreciate keeping informed.

tim wrote in post #11214976
Your watermark is quite light. You could try putting "proof" on it diagonally a bunch of times, like my proofing system does, but increase the opacity.

Check out my system here, which also disables right click to make it difficult to save the image. Yours does too.

Noted. On my most recent galleries I bumped the opacity to make it darker.

I have found that with my right mouse disable now how they get the images is they bring it up on the screen then take a picture of it with their cell phone and post that image on their fb page. Of course as you can imagine the quality is terrible and has my company name across it with my watermark. So now people seeing it associate my image with this garbage quality.

Rubi Jane wrote in post #11214929
I find the opposite. I invite customers to like my fb page and in return give them a 720px image for free. The vast majority of customers liking my fb page place orders and then spread the word for me. These are mainly images from running races, triathlons, marathons etc. I don't worry about w/m them but I sometimes add a race logo. If you're going to shoot digital I say embrace it and make it work for you.

Unfortunately a lot of my shoots involve youth activities where a lot of my marketing is trying to sell to parents. But a lot of parents could care less about quality images of these teen-age kids... but the kids LOVE the images and only care about posting them on their fb page. So if I open it up and give it away my sales I suspect would drop from the low it is now to zero.

Dermit wrote in post #11215285
Noted. On my most recent galleries I bumped the opacity to make it darker.

I have found that with my right mouse disable now how they get the images is they bring it up on the screen then take a picture of it with their cell phone and post that image on their fb page. Of course as you can imagine the quality is terrible and has my company name across it with my watermark. So now people seeing it associate my image with this garbage quality.

When I see a picture of a photo on a monitor I think that there is an idiot taking pictures of their monitor, I don't associate that photo with garbage at all

Dermit wrote in post #11211907
I find 'stolen' images of mine almost everyday, usually on fb and a lot of times the way they take them is they are taking pictures of the images on the monitor with their cell phones... which of course radically degrades the quality... which in turn is a bad reflection on me/my company especially when my company name/copyright is plastered across the image.

That doesn't reflect upon you and your company's quality as much as you think.

Dermit wrote in post #11215293
Unfortunately a lot of my shoots involve youth activities where a lot of my marketing is trying to sell to parents. But a lot of parents could care less about quality images of these teen-age kids... but the kids LOVE the images and only care about posting them on their fb page. So if I open it up and give it away my sales I suspect would drop from the low it is now to zero.

Time to find a new niche perhaps? I stopped doing track photography the day I realized it wasn't going to lead anywhere.

Dermit wrote in post #11215285
I have found that with my right mouse disable now how they get the images is they bring it up on the screen then take a picture of it with their cell phone and post that image on their fb page. Of course as you can imagine the quality is terrible and has my company name across it with my watermark. So now people seeing it associate my image with this garbage quality.

You do realize if they are smart enough, (a stretch for some I know) all they have to do is look in their cached internet folders..every image you pull up on screen is automatically downloaded to your computer, regardless of turning off right click etc...and its downloaded at what ever resolution it was uploaded at..