Small Paintings And Watermarks.

There must be a few people with comments on this topic, any feedback appreciated!

The water mark, in all too many cases, is a deterrent now matter how or where the prospective buyers sees it.

It all stops and starts right there for me.

"we need a better solution to keep the rogue sites at bay."

If that is the goal, watermarking has no affect on them. Watermarks, however, do discourage legitimate buyers.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

Why would a watermark discourage them Dan, if you could zoom and see the detail under the watermark, I believe this watermark idea is either snobbery or people agreeing to regular theft of their work and being downgraded if they do not comply.

I have started looking at the sale of some of my smaller works as usable on other products with text on, even though at a smaller markup, for example if I uploaded my smaller images, the display image would suffice for a rogue version blown up.

Michael, I can capture any image on your FAA site or any site on the internet, remove the water mark and come back and upload an image that will print out as large as 20 x 24 or larger.

I can do that with ANY image on the internet with or without the water mark. Some are more difficult but can still be done. I have demonstrated that in these threads before.

The best report that I ever seen was done by eBay maybe 5-6 years ago. I wish I had kept a copy of that report.

eBay at the time was (and still may be) the largest seller of art images in the world. On every image you uploaded they would put a little camera water mark on the bottom right hand corner.

I can't tell you how many emails or questions through eBay I got from people asking me if that "mark" was going to be on the print if they bought it. That doesn't tell us how many assumed that it would and just didn't bother to ask but didn't buy either.

Then eBay came out with this report that said that they had done a study and the water mark would no longer be applied to our images. They gave all of the stats of how many people thought that it would be on the image they bought and how many of them would not buy the image because they thought it would be there. Needless to say, that number was significant enough for eBay to conclude that the water mark was costing them (and therefore the sellers) money so they would no longer do it.

They said if we wanted water marks we had to put them on ourselves but also warned of potential loss of sales if they we did. The also warned that if they thought the water mark was such that it did not give a proper view of the image, the listing would be removed.

I never had water marks and I was very happy that eBay decided to remove them. I knew that if I was getting that many emails asking about it, that it was costing me money.

That is if the watermark is a plain opaque color Floyd, but not as easy if you add some noise to the watermark or a gradient. Just imagine the scenario with smaller works, if a rogue site can capture your display images which they do on a regular basis, then there could be many times the number of versions of your work for sale or free out there, which means you have reduced your chances of a sale by the same number potentially, also the likelihood of inferior versions affecting the observed quality of your work.

Think about it like this, Coca-Cola Fords Rolls-Royce and every big company you care to mention has watermarks or logo's on all their literature. A definite and clear phrase saying that the watermark will not be on the final print is required.

Michael, the odds that the rogue sites are damaging artists in any way is infinitesimally small. Possibly non-existent.

Artists have vivid imaginations. Great for making art, but also great for coming up with off the hook, fear-laden, what-if scenarios that simply aren't happening.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

How much has Coca-Cola spent on brand development and advertising over the last decade? Billions? Is there anyone on the planet with a wallet who hasn't heard of Coca-Cola?

Now how much has the average artist spent?


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

If FAA, can show that we have substantial sales in the smaller size prints then I might look at it differently Dan!.

Anything that "may" confuse a potential buyer probably "will" confuse that potential buyer.
Maybe I should begin encouraging people to W A T E R M A R K all of their images. There would be less competition that way.

~ Bill
~ USPictures.com

I still don't agree with the mentality Bill, and as I said earlier in the thread, the idea would allow zooming of that area to see the detail underneath the watermarked area, but with the more discrete FAA watermark that is on all the zoomed boxes.

zoom in - the problem is already with the zoom in - I've quit using it on my art - and now only on some of my photographs. To me the green box is NOT true nor does it show what the printed image will actually look like in the size that may get ordered. IF my largest image is 8 X 8 - why would the green box enlargement show it at 4,000 X 4000?

Their "branding" logos are NOT watermarks across art. and you are quite free to "sign" your photo's/art digitally. Their 'brand' logo is part of their product and isn't removed when someone purchases a "Ford" car or a bottle/can of Coke or a John Deere Tractor. Let's not confuse apples with oranges. If it's a painting - most artist's today sign their work - I digitally sign, as inconspicuously as possible, all my work - art and photographs.

" then there could be many times the number of versions of your work for sale or free out there, which means you have reduced your chances of a sale by the same number potentially,"

Wow! That makes a lot of assumptions that are lacking in any real evidence to support it.

First, that assumes that there is any real big movement out there to steal YOUR work and resell it. I am not picking on your work. I am just saying that there hundreds of millions of images out there for the crooks to chose from. Then it assumes that the buyer that buys the bootlegged copy would have ever even found yours to buy it. Not to mention that it would probably be more money, albeit higher quality. But we all know that it is not always about the quality.

The vast majority of the images being misused are very low resolution image. They are being used on blogs or news letters and other such non-commercial sites and purposes. Sure there is the occasional use in a real estate ad or what ever. But then that brings us to the topic of damages.

There is no hard cost or hard money loss to this kind of theft. You are not out anything. It is not like they stole you camera and now you have go replace it. How many sales, real hard money sales, are you willing to sacrifice to keep some church from using you low res image in their monthly bulletin.

"Think about it like this, Coca-Cola Fords Rolls-Royce and every big company"

Coca-Cola, Ford, etc, are not selling that literature. The watermarks are probably by agreement with the artist who owns the copyright and it is to prevent scanning as much as anything, which is a total different thing. The low res images we are talking about protecting are already digitized.

"not as easy if you add some noise to the watermark or a gradient. Just imagine the scenario with smaller works,"

The people that are most likely to really do an damage in reproducing your work, can remove that or any watermark. I have have not seen one I can not remove with PhotoShop and get a decent, clear image form. And I am not even very good with PhtoShop. You can not protect yourself from that guy determined to us your image with a watermark. But again, there is not a lot of evidence that that is happening in any great degree, not enough to offset the potential loss in legitimate sales.

Yes, Bill please do watermark all of you images. I will even create one for you! lol I would look something like this XX but much bolder and bigger of course.

If I can get all the phtogs here to use the watermark I would be happy to supply, I would be able to sell a lot more!!

I hear ya, Michael. BTW, I do watermark everything I put on social media - hoping that it gets "Shared" or even lifted. I want people to see my USPictures.com "brand."

However, if/when someone gets to a place where they can buy my work I don't want any impediments in the sales funnel. Better minds than mine (eBay, as Floyd mentioned above, and other large merchants) have put a lot of money into A/B testing and HCI (Human Computer Interface) design. I tend to not disagree with them. YMMV

I already stated that: "Anything that 'may' confuse a potential buyer probably 'will' confuse that potential buyer." Let me add that, "The more steps involved in making a purchase will reduce the conversion rate for an online sales transaction."

~ Bill
~ USPictures.com

This will print in a 9 x 12 size with no further processing. I could have it print as large as at lease 16 x 20, probably as large as 24 x 36.

That took me about 3 minutes to capture, remove the watermark and post.

"I hear ya, Michael. BTW, I do watermark everything I put on social media - hoping that it gets "Shared" or even lifted. I want people to see my USPictures.com "brand."

Makes perfect sense. I used to put my AW on those I posted but got to lazy and stopped doing it.

I agree that the watermark can be removed Floyd, but the automated capture and removal for whole sites full of images means more input and time from the rogue sites.

Good example, Floyd. The site-scrapers and rogues will be there regardless of what artists do to (supposedly) protect their work online.

I've been involved in the Affiliate Marketing Industry since 1999, full time for nearly a decade, and I've just about seen it all - including entire websites being ripped off by third world rogues. (Well, not always 3rd world.) I'm now scaling back our web business and going into semi-retirement mode. I want to do what I love, which is travel and record and share what I see via the medium of photography.

~ Bill
~ USPictures.com

Michael, when you concentrate your efforts on rogue sites you simply give them more power and decrease your creative effectiveness. Remember all the fuss over spammers several years ago? The "We have to stop them!" crowd was way off base, and completely unsuccessful. The accepted (and successful) way to remove spam from your life is to ignore/delete. It is such a good strategy that the process is automated.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

BTW, my USPictures.com is a domain I've owned for many years but never used until a few months ago. I thought it may be appropriate for the type of photography I like to do. It redirects to wherever I choose - currently to my A/W. Never being one to put all the eggs in the same basket, I want the option of being able to send that traffic anywhere at any time. If it turns out I eventually do better at Pixels.com I can easily send the USPictures traffic to my profile page there.

~ Bill
~ USPictures.com

Here's a pretty good test.

If you were given the choice of stopping 5 people from lifting a low res file that meant no monetary loss to you or selling a print with a $50-$200 profit, which would you take?

Before you answer, keep in mind that there is no hard money cost to you for losing the 5 images and you will probably not even know it happened.

From this mornings Recently Sold page, only 6 of the 250 sold images had watermarks. That is less then 3%.

Update: Today at 3:35PM only 23 0f 250 or 9.2% on the recently sold list had watermarks.

Just FYI: 20 of the 250 went to overseas locations which is 8%. My own sales were 14% overseas for the last 100 sales.