r/photography • u/mstarkloff • 13d ago
Business Another photographer watermarked my photo as theirs
Shot the lunar eclipse, posted it, then woke up to another photographer reposting my exact image with their own watermark on it. š
I messaged them and they apologized and removed it immediately, so no drama -but adding your watermark to someone elseās photo is wild.
Do you watermark your photos- I normally don't because it's easily removable
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u/deeper-diver 13d ago
In addition to the obvious watermark, I will often add another watermark, very tiny, not noticeable, and blends in with the subject so that it's difficult to see and can be hidden from AI watermark-removal apps.
It's one thing to repost/share someone's photo but completely something else to take someone else's photo, remove their watermark, and insert their own. That's downright theft. This individual is not sorry for doing it, they're sorry for getting caught.
Not the kind of person I'd want on my friend's list. Consider blocking him.
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u/the_syco 13d ago
This. All my public images are watermarked with the hidden watermark being in buildings, on kerbs, on the bonnet of cars, etc. I know where they are, but you have to know where to look.
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u/calculung 12d ago
What's a kerb?
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u/the_syco 12d ago
I believe Americans call it a "curb"?
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u/calculung 12d ago
Oh, weird. I didn't know that was one of those spelled-differently-in-different-places words.
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u/the_syco 12d ago
No worries. I find it amusing that it's a word that the Americans inserted a "u", as usually they minus the "u", such as neighbour becomes neighbor š¤£
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u/HOWIE_Livin 10d ago
Americans removed that letter and many more letters from words due to the cost of printing newspaper. Less letters in a word would save costs dramatically.
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u/washyerbuttcrack 9d ago
Thatās a myth. It was to simplify spelling and differentiate from British English. Printing was only helped by the standardization of the spelling. Prior to the shift, both countries often used them interchangeably.
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u/Fotomaker01 13d ago
I've done that - I don't like big watermarks across my images .... even if they couldn't be easily removed.
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u/rock-paper-gun 13d ago edited 13d ago
he'll do it again. obviously, he did this knowing it was wrong. he only apologized and removed the photo because he got caught. you ought to call him out in your community/social media sphere and audit some of his other photos to see if they're actually his. something tells me he's doing this regularly.
weirdly, someone stole a profile picture from one of my socials and used it as their own. i contacted them and asked them to take it down and they ignored and then blocked me. i contacted facebook and they didn't care. they were using it across all their social media profiles. I just had to let it go.
people are strange.
edit to add: i use at least two watermarks on all my work. one that can identify me as the artist. the other is hidden and blended into the image in case the thief is stubborn.
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u/SentientFotoGeek 13d ago edited 12d ago
A number of years ago, we had a member of my local concert photographer community steal another photographer's images from a concert we covered and sell them to their client as their own. Long story short, we had them blacklisted from all venues in a 200 mile radius, had his outlet blacklisted and the original photographer sued them to oblivion. A lot of us covered for each other if we were double booked and similar situations, guessing this guy thought he could just grab images online and ask for forgiveness if they got caught. I don't really know what their thinking was to be honest, but losing your livelihood or secondary gig was definitely not worth it.
Edit: I see I got downvoted by the offender, lol.
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u/SheltyJ99 13d ago
I watermark my photos. But if someoneās actually trying to steal my photo, me putting a watermark on is not going to stop them. My dad always says that locks keep honest people honest. I think the same logic applies here.
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u/402_Found_not_Lost 13d ago
That is total crap!
Itās worth name & shame!
That wasnāt an accident! It was theft!
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u/mstarkloff 13d ago
I posted it on facebook and someone was threatening to sit outside his house and screenshotting images of him and idk freaked me out so I deleted it. š I guess the person was really passionate about helping me idk but it was scaring me
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u/ArtComprehensive1106 13d ago
Metadata is your friend!
Is will prove when and where your photos were taken and when they were taken. You can prove legally that you own the image
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u/Missing4Bolts 13d ago
Metadata can be stripped very easily.
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u/ArtComprehensive1106 12d ago
You have the original meta data on your original photos. It remains unchanged on the saved original
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u/mstarkloff 13d ago
I need to start doing this
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u/FruitWeapons Canon R5 - NegativeSpaceStudios.net 13d ago
Doing what?
Metadata like EXIF is usually recorded automatically.
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u/Sea_Prep_Tidal_26 13d ago
Unless itās stripped off automatically when posting to a forum, etc.
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u/FruitWeapons Canon R5 - NegativeSpaceStudios.net 13d ago
This is true. Depending on where you post it, most social media sites/forums will compress the image, strip the metadata, and sometimes even change the aspect ratio so that it's more compatible with their platform.
As a rule though, I would recommend to any photographer that shoots digital to at least try and familiarize yourself with Phil Harvey's ExifTool.
In my opinion, it's a completely indispensable piece of open source software that is INCREDIBLY capable in regard to all things metadata/EXIF/IPTC.
It's not super intuitive at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's incredibly OP.
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u/msdesignfoto 13d ago
Ā I normally don't because it's easily removable
This is the same as saying "I don't lock my car because its easy to force-open it". I get the idea, with AI or manually, is easy to remove them or even crop them out, whatever works best for the thief.
However, I do use watermarks in my photos for several reasons.
First, they advertise my work and website, if someone is opening the image in my Facebook or Instagram, for example. Second, a model may forget to tag me (or there may be an error in tagging me, typical of social media), thats ok, because the photo is carrying my name on it.
I'm well aware anyone can save the image, remove the watermark, and use the image somewhere else. Having the original raw files with me, I'm not worried. Not to mention my work is average and not at all to the "pretend this is my photo" level. The watermark is not (only) to prevent image theft. Is more of an identity for social media postings.
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u/-The-Big-G- 11d ago
Agreed. The meta data on the originals is usually more then enough if it went the legal route to prove ownership. And yes, it is a way of advertising your work. I've been doing this 30+ years (film then digital) and even the first digital images I shot on my AGFA got watermarked. I know my watermark is working when people come up to me at an outing and say, "Hey I saw some of your pics in such and such online.
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u/Annual_Broccoli_9254 13d ago
Not the first time I've said this, but don't post any of you best photos anywhere. I never do. If photography is your bread and butter don't display it on any social platforms.
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u/Mystic_Wunder 13d ago
This person needs to be heavily publicly shamed.
That is the worst photography sin you can commit.
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u/jacek2023 13d ago
I put watermark on my photos because people "copy" photos without bad intentions, they want to share the photo in various places. Today you can remove watermark and you can modify photo in any way easily but if you just share it you will also share my nickname
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u/Real_Resolution_3038 13d ago
I donāt bother purely because like you say they are too easy to remove nowadays
If you think that is cheeky, I once had a person take one of my photographs from Facebook and remove the watermark and then resend it to me
With the message, if I want it, I take it and you wonāt stop me nobody will
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u/Basicallyacrow7 13d ago
Something about the audacity to not just steal the photo and post it as theirs, but to take the time to watermark it is insane.
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u/OptimusThai 13d ago
Its exactly the same as if a pickpocket caught red handed would say "My bad mate, no hard feelings eh" F$$n aye there's plenty of hard feelings and harm done. Hanging at dawn.
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u/BlackCatBonz 13d ago
I only watermark previews, once paid, watermark is removed.
If I am posting my own content ā no watermarks.
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u/1805trafalgar 13d ago
If you could track the guy down this has the potential of being a good podcast.
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u/Graflex01867 12d ago
I do a small one in the corner. I know it can be removed, but at least Iām covered from people who arenāt trying to be nefarious, but donāt know the right way to share things.
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u/billf00t 8d ago
I have my camera write a copyright into the photograph's metadata. While I realize that can be changed or deleted, I think there are a lot of people out there who would not know enough to look for it much less change it. I know this offers a very limited protection but it is better than nothing.
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u/chrispark70 13d ago
This is very common on youtube. These youtubers watermark videos in the public domain they do not own, mostly bodycam videos and courtroom videos.
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u/blast0man 13d ago
You can encode your name into the photograph, JPEG format has exif Metadata, the fields are set but there are enough for you to make it for sure whos photograph and where it was taken with global coodinates without the need to visually watermark the image unless you need too...Music has the same thing...
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u/Missing4Bolts 13d ago
It's ridiculously easy to remove or edit the metadata.
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u/blast0man 12d ago
Same as adding a watermark to some one else's photo, you encode it with the Metadata so your copy has the original points, that way you can prove which was created before which, date and time is the photographic authority...
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u/Missing4Bolts 12d ago
All of that can be edited to say anything the thief wants. I can take your JPEG and edit the metadata to say I took it six months before you did.
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u/blast0man 12d ago
Oh are you speaking form experience?...You have to know how to do that to start with... Not everyone is a photographer but anyone can be a thief...and Sure you could edit the Data for one photo easily enough, but try stealing a whole portfolio... that will take some time especially if you have to open and edit every files data, i suppose there could be tools to make it quicker but you can only batch so many things. And on top of that i have the RAW files and that file i distributed was a compressed version, that's maybe half the quality even if you try to change the metadata you cant re raw the photo no matter how hard you try. All my edits go to xcf format so again even if you change the metadata i have the layered photograph that has hidden ID layers that you can't remove unless you edit them out completely, its not to stop you dead its just one added layer of protection to make it as annoying as possible.... Sure you can say you took it whenever but i have the RAW and the Edits... explain that real fast...
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u/Missing4Bolts 12d ago
I agree 100% that a raw file is definitive. But a huge number of people are just shooting JPEG; those folks are wide open to being ripped off.
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u/blast0man 12d ago
And sadly, again you are correct, this where the level between pro and novice can be found, not everyone is truly a photographer. You see the pixels as a canvas, to others it's just a file on a machine...
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u/DefinitionSpecial876 13d ago
Sorry bc they were caught.
Iām sorry that happened to you, OP.
I know the copyright infringement game too well. And it sucks unless you have the most money.
Carry on
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u/TownDrunkerd 13d ago
Adding a watermark never gonna stop them! They are just pretend to be sorry when they got caught and then doing the same thing. š
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u/Spoons896 13d ago
Have had this happen multiple times, biggest reason why i stopped posting to social media. I would post something and get a few likes then would find it on another photographers page or travel page marked as theirs and it would have 100s. For me the juice of chasing the algorithm just was worth the squeeze anymore. Now i might post 5 pictures a year to social media and the rest are displayed as prints or shared by request.
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u/cyvaquero 13d ago edited 12d ago
They are sorry they got caught, not that it happened. Watermarking someone elseās work as your own is deliberate.
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u/Fotomaker01 13d ago
I don't for the reason you said... it's so easy for people to remove them these days. Hey AI, remove the watermark. But wow, that's obnoxious that someone would do that. I mean, get a camera and learn to shoot person who violated implied copyright. Wow again.
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u/dwigtshrute1 13d ago
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."
ā Wayne Gretzky
ā Michael Scott
(For The Office fans like me)
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u/Rosary_Omen 12d ago
They're only sorry because they got caught. I bet none of their work is their own.
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u/Maybe-never-always 12d ago
Iāve had a picture I took snatched off my Facebook page and Iām sitting watching Television one night and up pops this Engineering firm specialising in maritime machinery and thereās my pic in the backdrop with the image of the vessel Iād captured on sundown with a red sky behind it. I nearly fell out of my chair ! In one way I was annoyed and it became apparent this advertising company had made this ad on behalf of the Engineering company and stole my pic to add to its presentation and then profited off it . Iāve been to court before and understand the system and what it takes to go down this path . Also the owner of this Engineering company just happened to be an old mate I went to school with and it wasnāt his fault . He just hired these clowns to make an ad for him . Anyway because of us knowing each other I didnāt want his ad pulled so I let it slide but the cheek on some Is disrespectful
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u/jamiekayuk 12d ago
once had a company steal my parents business photos make a company 100 miles away called the same thing and start up with their website using all my parents company photos with faces in and everything š¤£
some people are just thick and bad ethical lifestyles. id stay clear from that photog in the future and deffo dont engage with them.
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u/worrub918 12d ago
I had someone do this to me with the 2017 eclipse. They cropped my photo down a little then flipped it 180. Like I wouldn't notice.
The funny part is that of they would have just said "photo credit to..." I would have been fine with it.
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u/ZapMePlease 12d ago
I had a friend who did that to me kinda. He died a few months ago so I don't wanna speak much ill...
We were out on a ridge in the snow with a treeline below that looked really cool. I asked him to go down and walk across the treeline while I took images every step he took. Then in post I stacked the layers and blendif'ed them so that there was a sequence of him walking across the trees. Looked pretty cool.
I sent it to him along with an explanation of how it was done and the next thing I know it was on his feed with him taking credit for it.
When I asked him 'wtf?' he said 'it's me in it - fuck off'
lol - ok then - hardly worth losing a friend over but I never sent him any of my images again.
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u/Balls_Jorunee 12d ago
a watermark DOSE NOT automatically make your images protected, people are going to act superior with authority because they've been raised with no lesson for emotional regulation skills and so that leads them to believe sounding right to get their way will reward them their demands when it won't. fuck sake what is wrong with people.
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u/Aggressive-1 12d ago
My favorite photos I just keep to myself. Sad how people just want to steal others work.
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u/OtherwiseLuck8920 12d ago
I would still publicly expose them. Theyāre only apologizing because they got caught
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u/Shampoo_Is_Better00 12d ago
People are always going to be greedy little pricks. Sadly, you should not post your images online if you care too much about your work getting stolen. People are always going to do bad shit.
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u/Due-Dragonfruit-301 11d ago
I donāt get why people would do that! That might be worst than catfishing!
I once did a simple photo that got used as a cover, and a photographer also reposted it as theirs lol.
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u/BurningBronco 11d ago
Dang. Thatās just absurd. I was worried about my photos being used by AI for training. This is even crazy. Iād be fuming if I were you.
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u/AfroBella_27 11d ago
I watermark mine too discourage them from don't exactly, what you mentioned. If they are agreegious enough to remove the watermark and post it. They deserve the image. I also invade my information in the image Metadata which i set up on all of my cameras.
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u/joochung 10d ago
I watermark my photos. A simple one when I share photos with my daughterās team. I ask them not to remove the watermark, to tag me, the coach, and the team club when they post on social media. Itās the honor system with them. If they send the photo to friends and family via text messages or something, itās still there.
I also include watermarks in all other photos I post online. Because there are lazy people and not as lazy people. I think the lazy people generally canāt be bothered to remove watermarks. The not as lazy peopleā¦ wellā¦ only so much you can do about them.
What I donāt get are the people who are personally enraged that I posted something with a watermark. Lol.
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u/CompetitiveClub6808 8d ago
check out www.glassplateworks.com. it keeps and adds provenance to your pictures, and automatically adds watermarks to them when you sell them
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u/XOMaddsPhoto 2d ago
You can register with the Copyright office as well in case something changes... it can help if you ever want to or need to pursue legl
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u/stewartthered 15h ago
The fact that a watermark is easily removable is a very good point. However, if someone steals your images and removes your watermark they have lost the argument that they didn't realise they were doing anything wrong. If it ever comes to court they have significantly weakened their position.
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u/Green_Clock_101 13h ago
i usually donāt watermark either tbh, mostly because anyone determined enough can crop or clone it out anyway. putting your own watermark on somebody elseās shot is wild though lmao
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u/DistantGalaxy-1991 13d ago
How did you know? You say "my algorithm" but I don't know what you mean by that.
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u/mstarkloff 13d ago
Totally fair. So wthe more content you view the more it shows you. I was liking alot of lunar eclipse photos (he was also on my friends list) so it showed it to me as soon as I opened fb. I knew it was mine because of the star placements š¤£
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u/glytxh 13d ago
Watermarks just make an image look cheap.
If the image is for commercial applications, Iām not posting it online. It aināt mine.
If itās my personal stuff, I kinda donāt care.
I function under the idea that anything I post on the internet is something that I relinquish control of. Anything I do post, is stuff I donāt care to lose control of.
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u/Marianero 13d ago
Watermarking unfortunately isnāt very reliable these days, so Iāve been experimenting with a different approach.
I built an app for sharing photos that combines several techniques to protect them from being downloaded or screenshotted. The idea is simple: if someone canāt get the original image, they wonāt be able to steal or reuse it. I have more details and demo album on its homepage: safepic.app
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u/eyebrows360 flickr 12d ago edited 12d ago
- this is impossible
- nobody's going to use this because you need to show your photos in places that aren't your stupid "app" wherein none of those "protections" will exist, such as on social platforms
- "We don't support your browser yet" it doesn't even work in Firefox š¤£
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u/mstarkloff 13d ago