Tag: watermarks

March 1, 2014

Watermarks Drive Me Crazy!

I don’t wish to offend anyone, but watermarks drive me crazy!

I find them distracting and it ruins the viewing experience for me.  I’m not sure which is more offensive, the transparent ones that go completely across the image or the bright white ones in the corner of the image.

Imagine if you printed your work with the watermark, how do you think it would affect the viewing experience?  Not well, and now that most viewing of images takes place online, you are ruining a lot of viewing experiences!

Presumably it’s done to stop people from stealing your image, but I’ve never personally had a problem with this.  What would they do with it, it’s low resolution and not suitable for printing.  Or do I think they will use my image and claim that it’s theirs?  I’ve never seen that happen, to anyone.

I think the worst thing that is likely to happen is that someone could use my image without giving me credit for it, but even if that occasionally occurs, no harm is done. I once found an online auto parts store using my “Old Car Interior” image above, I love free exposure and so I simply wrote and asked them to give me credit for the image.

Now, let me turn this personal rant into something useful. How can you know if someone is using one of your images?  There is a very simple method using the Google search function. Using a technology similar to facial recognition, you can upload an image and have Google tell you everywhere that it’s posted. It’s very cool!

Here’s how you do it using Chrome (and I assume it’s the same with other browsers):

  1. Go to google.com and it will display a search window
  2. Choose “Images” in the top right corner 
  3. Now, instead of typing something into the search window, click on the little camera over on the right side of the search window.
  4. Paste or upload the photo that you want to search for (you can use mine above)
  5. Click on the search logo and see everywhere this image appears.

If you’re concerned about people stealing your images, this is an easy way to confirm if it’s a problem or not.  But I’m guessing it’s not.

Now back to my rant: watermarks are distracting and unnecessary…think about it!

Cole