Digital watermarking.

Not too distracting at all, IMO.

Humph.

In all of my tests I was able to transfer the image back into Photoshop, increase the image size and dpi and get an "acceptable" print. The watermark would be complicated to remove but I hate having to put it in at such an intrusive spot to prevent cropping it out.

I don't want to send out dinkly little photos to proof - 5x6.25 is really as small as I would even consider going. How low of a dpi could I send while maintaining image integrity on the computer while having it crap out upon enlargement?

Thanks Tico!

It kind of makes me insane so I know I'm not a good judge. I spend a lot of time working on an image and it almost hurts to muck it up.

Test 2:

black/white 5x6.25 50 dpi jpeg

Well now that's just dinky.

Nobody could tell if they like a photo from such a dinky proof.

And even at that pathetic resolution it transferred over and enlarged faily good.

I think I am just missing some essential knowledge translating between computer and print.

Ugh. How terribly frustrating this stuff is.

Speaking as pretty much a member of the target demographic, either of those would easily convince me to get the full print.

A point I've seen made here a couple of times in a couple of ways that I really agree with is that while people maybe could take it and make a decent print out of it, I think it's unlikely that they would. If they're that technically adept, they could just be doing the whole thing themselves from start to finish -- take a decent-enough photo with their digital camera and then clean it up and make it pretty. The people you'll be dealing with are most likely to be the ones who want someone ELSE to do all of that work, and just deliver a beautiful print. IMO.

I think Boomer is afeared of miserable prints lying out and about on someone's coffeetable. It will happen, I suppose, but probably not by most who will go to a pro in the first place.

Reminds me, I'm reading a fairly idiosyncratic crime (of sorts) novel, set in Seattle and SF, based on photography, and, yes, the repro of it. Lessee, the name is..
Lost Glass Plates of Wilfred Eng
by Thomas Orton

Right up my alley, but won't attract those who tend to like action thrillers.

Your first sample worked for me in all respects, Boomer. If it doesn't present technical problems to you, I think you can be confident in going with it.

I'm cooking dinner as I type so this may be a bit choppy....

Osso is exactly right in that I fear crappy computer prints with my name on them laying around. This kind of business works almost strictly off refferal and you don't want crappy stuff in the marketplace.

Where she and others might be mistaken is in who is most likely to "steal" images: upper class - rich, white people.

After 20 something years in the portrait business I have learned that some people look at photos as an investment -- typically these are the people who can least afford it. To them a lovely portrait is not a luxury, it is a treasure.

These are the people I bust my ass to make happy.


More to come.......

Screen resolution is a lot lower than print resolution, so an image that comes out as 5x6 on the screen won't be nearly as large if you print it out.

Or if you do print it at the original size, there are obvious flaws in the printout.

I got that about the bad prints laying around, I just thought people wouldn't do it much, or if they did they'd just print without messing with it and it'd have that "Hey it's just a proof!!" (er, paraphrase) watermark on it which would protect boomer's reputation.


I spit upon the nasty stealers. Ptooie.

It's one of the more subtle watermarks I have seen. It's just enough to prevent it from being useful if trying to steal it but I didn't even notice it right away.

If anything, it may be too unintrusive!



72dpi, like you posted earlier, is useless at for print. I'm not sure what it's looking like on your monitor, but it's not going to look good when enlarged for print.

In our print projects we want at least 300dpi. Anything else and we shrink to print.

The minimum to get a decent print used to be 150 dpi. Pictures start to pixilate when viewed closely at 100dpi. 150dpi will give you something you can view from a few feet away and will look very nice but it won't be quite photo quality. 72dpi might look OK on a billboard but not held in your hand.

With the new printers and photo quality Craven is probably right at 300dpi for print work.

Maybe you want to put the subtle watermark across the print like you are doing and something more visible in the corner.

Oops. I was getting off on a rant there and had to calm myself down a bit. My point is - it is the people you would never suspect that are the biggest theives and attempting theives. The digital revolution has only made things more complicated not only by making theft easier but the whole attitude about photography has changed. Before when people complained that "it only took you 1/250 of a second to do your job" you at least had the defense of the skill it took to process and print. Photography now is considered an unskilled pursuit.

But enough about me....

Thank you all so much for your help and feedback. Doing it with this type of watermark really solves a lot of problems. I'm going to try proofing as half sized, 72 dpi, watermarked images and see how it goes.

Everything I submit to my lab is done in 300 dpi and they do an impossibly beautiful job. They're the ones that made me a believer in digital.

Again, thank you all so much for your advice!