Nowadays, I watermark approximately 99% of the photos I share online. And while many of you may think that my reasoning behind doing so is to ‘protect’ my copyright, you’re actually only half right.
Sure, I’m sick of seeing other people sharing my fishing photos as if they caught the fish (and I’m sure you are too – I’ve seen my photos advertising charters businesses and fishing tournaments from Mozambique to Panama!)
But for a fishing business, in my opinion, that’s actually not the main reason to watermark an image.
The reason I watermark my images with the boat logo is to brand my photos. (Yep, there’s that brand word again).
Watermark your photos for ‘brand’ recognition!
There are various pros and cons for watermarking your photos, so I’ve summarize what I think are the important ones for you.
Consider this:
- If you watermark your image with text “Copyright John Smith”, conscientious sharers might just respect your copyright too much and not share your image => less exposure for you.
- If you watermark your image with your logo => more likely to share and your ‘brand’ gets exposure (and your image too!)
- If you don’t watermark your pic at all => sharing may not include your business or brand = someone else gets benefit from your image.
If you took the trouble to have your logo professionally designed, use it.
If you have your boat’s name sign-written, use it.
Have neither of the above? That’s okay, you can watermark with some cool text. Do that instead!
“I’m not event remotely technical, so tell me how I can watermark my images.”
Okay sure. It’s really not that hard and there are plenty of tools that will help you to do this on your device or computer (for FREE). So I’ve gone ahead and tested several for you and have put together some instructions for the easiest (and did I mention FREE) resources going around.
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What kind of logos work best?
A logo with a transparent background (.png file).
If you have a coloured picture logo, that’s always going to work well for you. But if your logo is in black or white, it’s best to have both light and dark versions (ie. a light coloured logo that works well on dark backgrounds and a dark coloured logo that works well on light ones).
“Umm, I have a small problem with my logo..”
Did you have your logo designed long ago and no longer have the original? Or maybe it’s on a funny coloured background and you’re not sure how to get it off…
Well, send it to me, and I’ll see what I can do (send me your website link or a copy of your logo and I’ll return you a .png version with a transparent background!
