Faa Watermark

No, it does not print on the final piece.

You have to decide on upload if you want it or not. Otherwise delete the image and re-upload.

It has been said that watermarks deter sales, on the other hand watermarks deter theft.

Found my answer.

This is why I don't watermark - if an artist has to ask, odds are buyers will be wondering if its on the print too. And if they think it will, they won't buy.
But this has been debated over and over so I'll leave it at that.

"I have selected the FAA watermark for my art. Will it print on the art when sold to the customer? How do I unselect the box?"

This could not be a better testimonial of why NOT to use watermarks!

Watermarks kill sales.

The soft value (not real monetary loss) due to theft will not even come close to approaching the hard money value (real cash money) that will be lost due to using watermarks.

Hi Molly.. I believe tech support will remove them from your images without you having to re-upload if you ask them nicely..

So why are watermarks being used by certain photographers whose works sells quite often on this site? I came across one this morning--a friend I met through another site. He does exemplary work, he uses the FAA watermark, and he sells here on a regular basis.

@Connie - not everyone thinks the watermarks will be printed. Some may, and some may not. And of course, once a person buys one and gets no watermark, they know. And some artists may do a better job in explaining that there is no watermark on the finished product, especially if they market a lot outside of FAA. All depends.

I sell regularly on another site with no watermark..but I got the idea in my head that I needed to watermark all my images. .which took quite a while to do and low and behold the longest period I have ever had with no sales which was sixty days. I can't endorse watermarks!

It has been my observation of the recent sales page that the number of images that sell with watermarks is roughly proportional to the number of people here who use them. Watermarks MAY inhibit SOME sales, but they clearly don't kill all sales by any stretch of the imagination. My first sale came after I added watermarks.

I decided to use watermarks because a 900 pixel image can easily be lifted off of FAA's pages. From that anyone with no image editing skills whatsoever can make a presentable 8.5x11 print on any home printer. When I managed to do just that in under two minutes there was no question that I needed to add watermarks to all of my images.

Also, Pixels.com royalty free licenses come in several sizes.The smallest two are 1,000 pixels and 500 pixels. Nobody's going to pay for a 500 or 1,000 pixel download if they can "lift" an unwatermarked 900 pixel copy for free.

To reduce confusion I put a notice in every gallery description, every image description, and in my bio, that the watermarks won't appear on any purchased products or downloads. FAA also puts a notice on every order page. Even these may get past some dense minds, but I figure most people will get the message.

Watermarks may lose one a few sales but certainly not all sales. If you are not selling at all --- then things like removing watermarks or setting ridiculously low prices -- won't make a difference because the problem lays elsewhere - not working on branding, not offering what customers are looking for, not keywording, no descriptions etc.


I license through a number of agencies who all watermark my images. It would be stupid of me to release unwatermarked images on to the Internet to complete with the images I'm licencing.

How many people come to FAA, find your picture, download it, and make a 8x10 print? And if, what have you lost?

I get asked this a lot unfortunately

I think watermark is a must so the you can secure you work, i use it all the time.

Edward said.
' It would be stupid of me to release unwatermarked images on to the Internet to complete with the images I'm licencing."

I have licensed my images so many thousands of times that they are all over the internet. I don't lose any licensing revenue because a screen grab only gets you an image not a license. People that screen grab don't generally license. I don't lose print sales because there are not enough pixels to make a print. Why would I hurt my sales by watermarking a small image that others who have licensed the image are free to use with no watermark? Having record sales this week on FAA and stock.