San Francisco Bay Area Wedding & Portrait Photographer Blog – Stacey Ann Photography

Watermarking an image is in other words placing a logo on the photo. There are a lot of clients out there that would like us photographers to remove that watermark when we place it on Facebook because it “gets in the way” or “is a distraction” in the image. When you have your pictures taken by a photographer you would think that they would inform you if an image from your session was being placed permanently in a public place, such as a doctors office or billboard. Although most photographers do have clients sign an agreement that says that they(the photographer) have a right to use your images for that purpose, many will contact that client beforehand to make sure that is in fact okay with that client. That’s the way I do things anyway. And it is clearly stated in my contract that I do have permission to do so, but in the event that I would put an image up for public display that I would contact my clients beforehand.

With the internet these days and especially the social media sites where everyone is posting images its very easy for anyone to get a hand on your picture. I bet you didn’t know that when you upload images to Facebook they are being uploading in high resolution. It’s no longer an option. Did you also know that there is a download link? Yep, anyone that has access to your profile can go in and download images from any of your albums like your Hawaii vacation with the family or Christmas time etc. I’m not trying to freak you out and prevent you from posting pictures of your family on Facebook, but I do want to warn you of something that is very real.

There are a lot of people out there that want to become photographers. Some are so desperate that they take other photographer’s images and use them as their own. They slap them on websites and pass them off as work that they have done. Which may be all fine and dandy until the time that the “photographer” shows you your images and they look nothing like the ones you saw on their website.

This is why a watermark, or a logo on an image, is so important. I don’t want my clients coming back to me saying that they saw their picture on a billboard (or somewhere else that isn’t so public) when I had nothing to do with it. The reason I put a watermark in the middle of the image is not to necessarily throw my name out there so when their family and friends look at the image they know who captured it, but to prevent the issue of some random person downloading that image and selling it as their own artwork.

I’m writing this to inform not only my clients, but everyone. If you have your pictures taken by a photographer and they give you watermarked images to use for social media sites use those instead of the files that are the high resolution ones for printing. If you don’t purchase any high resolution files, but want to put some on your Facebook from the session check with your photographer some will sell these watermarked images for cheap or maybe even gift them to you. Trust me they will appreciate the fact that you are obeying the copyright portion that you signed to in your agreement.

Posting watermarked images from your photo session doesn’t just help your photographer, it helps your family stay out of the public places that you would rather not have your family displayed.  I hope this short blog post will help my clients understand why I place a watermark on each image that I place on Facebook and my blog.

By the way the picture below is one that I downloaded directly from my Facebook page and loaded onto here. It is not the original file. I wanted to show you an example of what I am referring to above. This image isn’t pixelated in anyway and if it wasn’t watermarked anyone could download it and put it anywhere they wanted.