Recently I have begun to notice some of the horrendous copyright notices that are applied to images on the internet. Sure this is something that has been going on for a long time, but as someone who collects photos of celebs it has recently really started to piss me off.
Now before I go on to give some examples, I want to say; I fully understand that a photographer wants to protect their content. You took it, you own the copyright/image, I get it really I do. But there is a difference between marking your image and ruining it and it seems many photographers just don’t know where the line is.
Take this picture of Chloe Moretz. 
(all rights for ownership and deformation of this image probably belong to iPhoto Inc. That’s just a guess though)
This is a perfect example of how to butcher an image. The tag has been placed all over the subject, while this is a clear attempt to stop people stealing the image and claiming it as their own. It also makes iPhoto look unprofessional and disrespectful. After all, if I was Chloe, I’d be rather pissed that some horrible so-and-so had stuck graffiti all over me. Not only does it make the image looks unprofessional, it makes me want to avoid anything to do with iPhoto Inc. While I am sure if you purchase this image it wouldn’t have the watermark, it certainly doesn’t make me think that. What it makes me think is this company has no respect for the subject of photography or the subjects with in the image it’s self.
As I said, I do understand they don’t want people stealing images, then why not offer thumbnails only? Leave out the butchering of an image altogether. If we are completely honest, there are people out there that can remove all that crap with photoshop anyway. So why bother? It’s like turning on the sprinklers overnight just in case there is a fire. You might stop a potential fire with your actions, but you still ruin all the things you were trying to protect in the first place.
Here’s another example of bad water marking. A similar approach to iPhoto, but this one is even worse. Not only does it obscure Chloe, it covers here face and frankly is one of the more disgraceful acts of vandalistic watermarking I have ever had the displeasure of seeing. Admittedly, they don’t use ones quite this bad any more. But they still take no car to avoid the face of the people in the photo, which to me is nothing more than disrespectful and also why I would never do business with them.
So how do you watermark an image? Well, there’s the obvious option of putting your watermark in one of the corners, making sure it is not intruding on the subject’s face or head. This allows you to keep your image watermarked, while showing respect for both the content and photography in general. Of course, you still don’t want to over size the corner watermark. It needs to be visible, but not overpowering of the image its self.
There is of course the option of using a black boarder under the image and tagging that. But of course that is way too easy, even for noobs, to simply crop it off. Photographers/Agencies take note. Find a way to protect your images without ruining them and making YOU look bad, it only turns people away from you when you do.
darkmatter1981 