Watermarks-Stealing

[Former_Member]

I just read something....and it got me thinking. I am about to pull my pictures down and put watermarks on them. A friend got a message stating that "he could just save her picture on here and print it himself and not pay the outrageous price for the print". So anyone every thought of that or had that happen to them???

[Former_Member]

The pictures we upload to etsy are not high resolution. If they saved a picture and printed it, it would not be nearly the quality of purchasing the print.

[SusieRoseDesigns]

I had a friend have a quilt that she had made and it was featured in a mag online and a "lady" putting on a quilt show "stole" the pic to advertise her show.

It's a wise and prudent to put a watermark on your pics.

[Former_Member]

With so many images floating around out there in cyber world, it sounds like watermarking is the best thing to do.

[HullStreetStudio]

watermarking helps but the best thing to do is never ever put anything higher than 72dpi online. Printing something that's 72dpi even to 8 1/2 x 11 looks like poop.

[Former_Member]

I see it all the time. People will "steal" your pictures. I highly recommend that everyone watermarks your pictures. I am in the process of uploading only watermarked pictures. The way I look at it, it is advertising.

[Former_Member]

That's something I've noticed. I was on polyvore the other day, and I saw a picture that looked really familiar. I went to my esty favorites to check to see if it was the same one, and it was. Someone had put a fine art print on polyvore to use in making sets.

[Former_Member]

I h ave a scanned picture on my page. Will it still be low res?

[SusanWindsor]

Once an image is uploaded, it is down-sampled to 72 ppi. BUT sometimes you can still send that to a decent desktop printer and have it look okay. It wouldn't be high enough resolution to put on a press, but it might be just okay enough for a simple ink-jet. Watermarking all images is always a good idea. That said, a person well-versed in Photoshop can often work around that. But that's the gamble we take with putting any of our images online.

[Former_Member]

I'm so mad right now. A friend of mine on here got messaged on here. The guy told her that he wasn't going to pay the money for her prints and was going to print it out on his computer at home! Can Etsy do anything??? This is so messed up.

[Former_Member]

She should immediately make her prints inactive or go in vacation mode until she can watermark her pictures. Not sure what Etsy can do but he's basically admitting to stealing.

[EleanorsVintage]

Now I am getting worried - I try to show my prints in the best quality possible -not a good idea?
So how do you watermark, does etsy have that option? iPhoto doesn't it seems :-(

[dalystudios]

Anybody who tries to make a print out of a 72 dpi hijacked image is going to get terrible quality. I wouldnt worry about it. My husband sells his paintings for 5 figures and we have never watermarked an image online. His website has been going strong for many years, and it's never been an issue. If someone wants to look at a fuzzy reproduction, they are welcome to it.

[Former_Member]

This is what happened to me. I have a second shop; I offer baby hats and other knits. One eBay seller stole my pictures and posted on her eBay to sell. She has done it to many.

[Former_Member]

I'm thinking about doing the same... but I change all of my pictures so often that it just adds hours of work. I might do it with a bunch. Might even stop the Chinese, or at least make them think twice.
As for the guy printing a picture to hang on his wall... well, that speaks for itself as to how much taste he has!

[CharmingPrintables]

I've always wondered why Etsy doesn't prevent people from doing this by getting rid of the right click option. I've seen websites before where if you try to right click on an image to copy or save it, it will say, "opps!" or something like that, and not allow you to do it. I talked to my husband a little about it (he's a web designer), and he said they should be able to make that happen across the site.

Sure...people could still take a screen shot, but there are a lot of people who don't know about that feature, and there are computers that don't have it.

[Former_Member]

I crochet, and it happens a lot. It is really sad. I try to tell everyone to watermark. Even a simple Beveled watermark with initials is a great idea. I know for an Android there is an app call PicsArt. I use it when I instagram.

[Former_Member]

This is really disheartening and sad. I say watermark all photos.

[Former_Member]

I was looking at someone's photos the other day that showed up in my activity feed and saw that they didn't have them watermarked. The price wasn't high, but I immediately thought about contacting them and suggesting they do something.

Not everyone remembers to resize their photos that are uploaded, so some are a high enough resolution that they can be printed out. Don't take the chance. If you don't want someone to copy your pictures, watermark them.

As far as Etsy restricting the right-click option, I'm glad they don't. I work on my shop from at least 3 different computers and if I want to copy one of my pics, I do a right-click and download it. I'd hate to not be able to do that anymore.

[Former_Member]

I did not know to re-size my scanned art prints when I opened my shop. I think that they(Etsy) should say something about re-sizing your photos,especially artist posting their pieces.

I have had my scanned prints up for some time and I have had no sells. I didn't think about re-sizing my photos that I posted in my shop until just a couple of days ago. So now I have my prints up with watermarks on them. I am in the process of finding a better way of watermarking my photos so as to look more appealing to possible purchases. This is really frustrating.

I realize you do take chances by putting your paintings or prints up but watermarking my pieces might detour possible purchases.
What do you think about my watermarks?

[Former_Member]

Hello Summer,
Your watermarks are ok. I started adding watermarks to my illustration pics a few months ago but I was a bit worried because I didn't want to show the first pic watermarked. It's kind of distracting for the viewer and the items don't get in many treasuries.
Finally, I decided to use a thumbnail pic showing just a little part of the illustration as first pic, this one doesn't have watermarks. Then the second pic shows the whole illustration and it is watermaked. I always write in the description of the item to click on the 2nd picture to see the full image and it works perfect so far :)
I think the 2nd pics of some your items will give a better first impression for the viewers.
All the best for you and your shop!
♥

Sorry if there's some mistakes in my writing, english is not my first language and it's 2:00 a.m here...Words start to mix in my head at these hours :D

[iheartcharlie]

if you want to watermark your pics and you don't have photoshop you can down load Gimp it's free www.gimp.org they have instructions online, or you can just google how to watermark with gimp. there are other free programs out there that will watermark you just need to google it.

I use gimp and love it.

[Former_Member]

Marcia from MarciAnnDesigns says

As far as Etsy restricting the right-click option, I'm glad they don't. I work on my shop from at least 3 different computers and if I want to copy one of my pics, I do a right-click and download it. I'd hate to not be able to do that anymore.

We got a second computer (laptop) a few months ago. I used to store all my Etsy photos on our desktop computer, which made it impractical if I wanted to list items with the laptop. My son gave me an extra flashdrive he had kicking around. I transferred all my Etsy photos to the flashdrive and any new stuff I photograph gets put on the flashdrive. All that has to be done from the desktop because that's where Photoshop is installed. Once my photos are on the flashdrive I can work on whichever computer is most convenient on listing day. It also keeps the photos from taking up disk space and heaven forbid if my computer crashes, nothing is lost.

[Former_Member]

Judy,

Sometimes digital vaults are included through your internet provider. Also Photobucket provides a vault for pictures. So if you do use different computers you could just go to that account and retrieve your pictures.

-Summer =0)

[Former_Member]

Summer Crew from NowInColor says:

"I did not know to re-size my scanned art prints when I opened my shop. I think that they(Etsy) should say something about re-sizing your photos,especially artist posting their pieces. "

It is not Etsy's responsibility to educate you. As a seller it's your responsibility to understand all aspects of the job, marketing included.