To Watermark or To Not Watermark.....

A few questions to ask yourself first.

• A. Do you value your own artwork?
• B. Are you proud to tell the world you created your own artwork?
• C. Do you value other peoples artwork enough to not steal?

The answer to all of these should be YES!  (If its no MySpace is that way --> )

Its a sad fact but un-watermarked large pictures are a rippers dream come true... DA is a proven gold mine for anybody wanting to take up art theft as a hobby, and just because you have a written disclaimer in your description stating that your artwork is not to be redistributed hardly makes a difference.  Anybody who has browsed the net or received a dreaded note stating that your art has been ripped will know intimately how disheartening and sickening it is, and what an almost futile fight it is to try and get the artwork removed or the ripper shut down. Watermarks don't have to be horrible clunky things that destroy the artwork its supposed to be protecting, and they really could mean the difference between your work becoming the nest victim of the rip lists and the rippers leaving well alone!

"Won't slapping a huge great big watermark on my work ruin it?"  

The basic answer to this is unfortunately yes. If you are not careful about where and how you place your watermark it can look a bit unsightly and detract from your work.  However! Don't write off watermarking just yet!  Done carefully a watermark can be unobtrusive whilst still making it difficult for people to "rip" your art.

Watermarks can be anything you want them to be, logos, text or a stylised signature, there’s no reason why a watermark needs to be drab and uncreative!

Take a look at the following tutorial for examples of good and bad watermarking -

Effective Watermarking Tut by timmy64

"Watermarking doesn't do anything, people still rip stuff"

Whilst watermarking can not completely prevent people from stealing artwork it can certainly help to identify it on other sites!  Most "individuals" who rip art do so because they A. like it and B. want to be credited with the talent it was created with. However this also means that more often than not, other than resizing, copying and pasting, their skillz don't run to removing a watermark without causing damage to the actual picture.

"I hate watermarks and won't fave somebody’s work because they've used one."  

That is of course down to your own personal opinion, however penalising somebody for trying to protect their work from theft because they are proud of the time and effort they have put into a piece is a little unfair don't you think?

"I hate watermarks is there any other way to mark my image as mine and to limit the damage done by rippers?"

YES there are several different things you can do along with a watermark or on their own.  

• - DON'T post your artwork full size! The average size monitor being used today is a 17 inch 1280 x 1024 resolution. This means that if you make your full view picture any larger than on average 1000 pixels wide people aren't going to be able to appreciate the full view without having to scroll anyway. Being able to see a complete picture is much nicer than only seeing a quarter of it! This also means that a ripper taking your artwork and trying to blow it up to resell will find it difficult without suffering large degradations in the quality.
  
  If you have lots of tiny detail you want to show your viewers consider showing a few small sections full view in another "companion" piece as a montage.
• Make use of your EXIF data!!  Photoshop users can use their file browser in CS and upwards to add copyright details to images including author/owner, contact details, url or original gallery etc.  All these things can help identify your image! Its also another thing that rippers tend not to notice for some reason. This can also be done by right clicking your image and selecting "properties".
• SIGN your artwork!  If you're proud of it sign it! Even this will help identify your ownership of the artwork and it doesn't have to be huge or slap bang in the middle!

"Why should I bother when the top artists don't?"

Plainly and simply the "top artists" are instantly recognisable cropped, badly remanipped or otherwise.  This is how they and others identify their work by their style. (They will still always sign their work!)  This doesn't mean to say that they don't care that their artwork is being stolen!  Some will allow the redistribution of a small portion of their work at a low resolution so long as credits etc are given but this is entirely down to each particular artist.

"How come DA doesn't help us get our stolen work removed from another site?"

As much as we would love DA to be able to play a more active roll in helping us protect our artwork unfortunately if its outside of DA they have no control.  If you find a site ripping artwork off artists that are members of DA the best thing to do is contact the artist directly and send them a link to the site.  That way the artist can take action by contacting primarily the site owner and the hosting company.  Most rippers are ignorant and rude, and really don't care 2 hoots that they are in breach of copyright so unfortunately ranting at them or the DA staff doesn't really do much good. If you have found your work stolen on another site you can contact riplist which is a group run by normal Deviants who try and help where they can to get sites shut down, but again contact the site owners and hosting company first and any other artists you recognise as having their work stolen.

Whilst DA can't help get stolen work removed from other sites they do everything they can to prevent copyright theft from happening on DA. If you find artwork on DA you believe may be in breach of copyright please read FAQ #238: How do I report people for abuse, harassment, or another issue I think is a problem? for details on how to correctly submit a ticket.
You can also check out - FAQ #257: What sort of permission do I need to use someone else's work? and for stock users - FAQ #157: Can I use things created by other people in my submissions? to make sure YOU aren't breaching copyright by using somebody else’s work in your deviations.

DA are also beta-testing an "in house" watermarking system that adds a DA style watermark to your image as part of the submission process. Please be aware however that this is currently only available to Beta Testers, for more info see - FAQ #332: Does DeviantArt have a feature that will automatically watermark my deviations?

"So you've convinced me.. how do I add a watermark that won't detract from my picture but will dissuade rippers from taking my art?"

There are several ways of doing this and every artist who regularly uses a watermark will have their own way of creating it.  ASK! We're not a community for nothing! If you see a style of watermark you like ask the artist how they make it, I can guarantee you they will reply with some advice on how to go about it!  Check out the tutorials page!  There are many well presented tutorials right here on DA that take you step by step through the process of adding your own watermark. A few examples -

Watermarking in Photoshop by stickysharkies
Watermarking Images by hakfest
Bright Watermarking by MGW
Simple Watermarking in GIMP by fence-post

For those of you who use Painter or Paint Shop Pro please accept my apologies that I could not find any tutorials for these applications! If anybody fancies having a go feel free!

You could also try the program websites for tips and tutorials -

Corel Painter / Paint Shop Pro
Adobe Photoshop
The GIMP

There are hundreds of other tutorial sites just a search away!

"This has already been said a dozen times before.... why are you bothering to make another news article about the same stuff?"

Clearly its HASN'T been said enough, every day there are more sites being found with more artwork from DA and other places stolen and reposted with no credits for the original owners and no way of telling who owns the art unless you've come across in a gallery on DA or another art site.  It is my honest opinion that trying to stop this from happening is worth repeating how to protect your art several hundred times! Anything that makes it harder/more frustrating/irritating for rippers to do what they do best is a good thing!

Got any other ways to watermark or add copyright info? SHARE IT!

My thanks to those whom I've borrowed tutorials off -


I hope this was useful!