Water Marking???

[LensCrazy]

Ok for each event I shoot I will be posting about 300+ photos. They need to be a good size file so that people can see the clarity of them, but I don’t want them to be able to down load them and cut off my profits. How do I mass water mark these photos. I am sure you all know what I am talking about.

I just want the name of my company across these uploaded photos. Can it be done in PS, of other programs? I don’t want to go through every photo and edit them!!


THANKS!!!

[livin4lax09]

I blieve you can do it in photoshop, but there is also freeware that you can download and use as a stand-alone program. A lot of event sites also will let you automatically watermark them. Also, what size are you using for your shots?

[JSPhoto]

LensCrazy,

If you have photoshop Elements you can watermark entire galleries and upload them. You can adjust color, opacity, font & size like this one (I didn't adjust it on these though)
http://www.ihssw.biz/2005KBTC/pages/OB5O4368.htm.
It will make the html pages, thumbs and images from the originals then just upload everything (hope you got fast connection!) It takes longer to upload than anything.
Sepending on your machine it can take a while to do 300 photos! And you need a good webhost that doesn't limit you too much. I use POWWEB which gives me a ton of webspace at a cheap price.

JS

[LensCrazy]

JS
I have elements and also the new PS. So i should be able to figure it out to batch mark these.
Thanks once again

Livin,
I am taking them in full 8mp but the up load would be about half the size if not less.

[livin4lax09]

what i suggest, after just reading a thread about this on another forum, is to upload a photo of about 500 px wide/high, depending on the orientation of the photo. Make it about 5 for quality too. Even with a watermark, you will see that people will just print out your photo anyways. Make it so they can't. If you upload a 800 px. photo at quality 10, people will print out 5x7's, even with the watermark on them. Just a tip. I know you want to show quality, but you risk losing business if you do.

here's an example from my album to show what I mean. The quality of the photos is bad, but you can still easily tell what's going on.

http://www.photoreflect.com/scripts/...um=0&adjust=-1

[JSPhoto]

JS
I have elements and also the new PS. So i should be able to figure it out to batch mark these.
Thanks once again

Livin,
I am taking them in full 8mp but the up load would be about half the size if not less.

LensCrazy,

I don't upload anything over 100K-150K, that way if they print it it will look like crap. I had a players mother say she printed shots off the site and was disapointed in the quality, she asked how to get better prints...I said "buy the real prints from me and quit stealing them" She got all "po'ed". She was also mad about the watermark and I told her that it's there because of people like her. She said I make enough money from the paper that I don't need to make more off her. I could go on about this, but now she buys them from me (while mumbling evil things).
I have found my pictures on websites that were not authorized to have them...lol, first thing I do is send them a bill for $100....the pictures come off the site real quick or the site gets shut down by ISP because they don't want any hassles.

JS

[hesaias]

Im kinda torn about this. I shoot my local HS because I want the kids to get the pics. I know I could charge, but I really feel kinda strange about it. My galleries are free. The image quality is set at 10, 800 px wide. I am gonna get a good photo printer and charge for prints, even then, I will prolly give a good chunk to the Booster club.

I dunno.

[LensCrazy]

hesaias,

This is the difficult part. People like me that do not have a lot of experience but have a good eye and are willing to learn the methods, need to do some free work to get practice and our name out. But a lot of these guys make a living taking photos and have no choice. Plus now that I am trying to build a business out of a once hobby I see how the cost rises fast. Your time, money and knowledge go into taking these shots and you should be compensated somehow.

The biggest problem with doing anything for free is that people will expect it to be free always, also take advantage of it, even complain even if its free

[livin4lax09]

I have started to charge everyone except the paper I shoot for. I'm just doing that one to get my name out there. Some girl from my high school contacted me, saying "you should give me a deal, 2 5x7's for $10." My answer? I simply referred her to a couple other photographer's sites, along with a local one that also shoots John Stark events, and showed her that other photographers charge up to 15 dollars for a 5x7. Suddenly $7 seems like a deal. Just keep your prices low, and there shouldn't be a problem. If people want to steal images off my photoreflect album, let them go ahead and do it. At most, they'll get an ok quality wallet print, with a big "photoreflect" watermark running diagonally across the photo.

[masdog]

Don't set your prices too low. Its odd, but if you're too cheap, people might think that your images aren't as good as someone who charges a couple of dollars more.

[livin4lax09]

mm, very true. I want to start a new thread on this. See the newest thread in this forum.