Photography

No one’s stealing my shit images anyway

Just get paid for your work beforehand. Focus on doing commissioned work, don't try and sell photos afterwards (which is a dying market anyway). Watermarks are pointless these days. And I barely see anyone using them anymore.

My account is private

Watermarks haven't been a secure way to protect your images for years.

The only way to be 100% sure you can retain full control of an image is 1) never post it online or 2) never post it in full resolution or crop. Anything else is able to be gotten around.

Other than that, the only way I keep myself from losing my mind about it is knowing that I'm not nearly famous enough for it to matter, and even if someone steals one of my photos, the most they can do is make a print and sell it to some rando somewhere.

That's another reason to shoot in RAW, because that's practically your digital negative and your best proof that you shot the original photo. Firstly I'd not use the full resolution JPG image to post anywhere, so resize it to 50%. Then use the lowest JPG quality that still delivers an acceptable image. You can use an app that allows you to move a slider and visually see the effect.
You can go even further by embedding all your copyright info hidden into the photo's digital matrix by using stenography, which will help prove ownership. There are apps that can do this. "Digital watermarking: Using it to create invisible watermarks that do not distort the image, while being able to track if it has been used without authorization"
https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-is-steganography

Removing watermarks was really easy long before AI. So you either make the watermark so obtrusive that it ruins the photo or it doesn’t and is easily removed. What is new is that somebody can train an AI on your body of work and not just steal your photos but generate more in your district style if you got one.

Ultimate posting online means somebody can take it. Don’t want that? Don’t post online.

I never watermarked an image in my life, and I’ve been shooting professionally for over a decade. I’ve also seen the websites of thousands of other professionals and literally nobody I take seriously watermarks their images. The only exception are one or two agency or gallery sites I follow.

Rather than watermarks, use search tools to periodically check to see if your images pop up somewhere. If they do, get paid.

I am not changing my way of working due to AI. I know it can remove a watermark, but that is a lame excuse. Anyone with a minimum of editing experience can remove a watermark.

I do watermark my images for the visual identity, not so much for protection. For paid jobs like weddings and aniversaries, I deliver the photos without watermark, but I do use it when I post them in my social media and website.

The internet is an ocean of content and I'm just a small grain of sand in the middle of it. If by any chance, one of my images end up being used without my permission, I will take action depending on the context. For now, I am not worried, because my photography is not so fantastic to the point someone is interested in stealing it anyway...

As for the issue of watermarks for proofing, I provide images in my website for people to buy their prints, not the actual digital photos. If a wedding guest wants a digital photo, they can simply ask the bride and groom for it, since they get all the digital photos. I charge for the prints, not the digital photos, so again, I'm not worried about AI on this regard.

Watermarks don't protect anything and they never did. They are more of an advertising tool. The moment you pressed that shutter button you have full copyright on the image. When people steal your work you contact your local Collective Management Organization to file a claim. In Belgium we have SOFAM for example. English is not my first language so idk if I'm using the right English term.

how to protect your picture simply dont share them.... use a private gallery on a website

Watermarks have been easy to remove for a long time now.

If someone really wants to steal your image they will and there isn’t anything high can do to prevent it other than never let anyone see your images, which defeats the point of taking photos in the first place.

I don't. My images have no commercial value, I don't do it for a living (though at least I do work in the photographic field), and I don't really care to.

Watermarks didn’t stop anything. People used Photoshop to remove them or cropped them out of the picture. Some people didn’t care about the watermark at all and used the picture with it visible.

The venn diagram of people who watermark their photos and people who make photos anyone would actually want to steal are two non-overlapping circles.

Everyone is saying not to bother watermarking. And nobody who does is any good does it. As a counter example here is a highly successful photographer whose work is fantastic that uses obnoxiously large watermarks: https://cherylwalsh.art/

You can see by her subject matter, her work might be one that is frequently stolen by people who don't want to pay for prints. Much more so than the average photog selling prints.

The watermark is big enough that it would not be easy to remove by an average person even as tools to do so improve.

Y’all acting like you are making a living from selling landscapes… in reality that a handful of people

99% of my revenue comes from paid gigs, I think it's wasted energy trying to protect my images from being stolen, it's 1% of my revenue and even then, I'm basically doing mental gymnastics to prevent the slim chance that MAYBE someone or an AI steals an image and uses it, and that same person was going to be a paying cx otherwise

I'd rather just spend my extra brain power and time playing a game or working out

It doesn't affect me (hobbyist) but if I'd be concerned I'd use something like this
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/23/1082189/data-poisoning-artists-fight-generative-ai/

I never put watermark because it looks too ugly and ruin the picture.

But if I somehow really need to protect it and it has to be watermark, I'd put big translucent watermark that stretch through the whole image so the AI will not understand which part is watermark. But again, it ought to ruin the picture.

I have a related question: How common is it for images to get swiped? I am a hobbyist and generally feel like if someone stole an image I took, I could just take another one another day. If an image is really meaningful to me, I don't usually post it online.

We'll have to see if embedding content credentials takes off in cameras so the details can be kept and not erased.

Simple. I don't post pictures online except for 30 as examples on the same places.

I've been looking at Openstego which looks like a reasonably secure watermark that is not immediately obvious.

Post less online.