Does this watermark make my blog look fat?

So you’re a blogger. Awesome. Every blogger understands the value of including pictures in a post. A picture, as they say, says a thousand words. It’s true. A relevant picture or pictures can elevate a lousy blog post to a decent blog post or a decent post to a great post. But you know what does not add value to a post? A picture with a big ass watermark splashed across the middle of it. That post screams amateur. It screams “I am a self righteous jerk who wants the world to know that THIS is MINE.”

A great rule of thumb is to not post a picture anywhere on the internet that you are afraid someone will steal. Period. Yep, people take images all the time. Those people suck. They really do. And they need to be called out on their suckiness. But compromising your own work because of the fear that someone might take it is just silly.

Let’s be logical here. I am have seen FAR more blogs with stolen content than I have with stolen images. So should we just watermark our blog completely? Make it difficult to read, or at the very least, the eyesore that unsightly watermarked pictures are? That would be silly right? Of course it would.

I read a great article recently by a well respected photographer who takes the attitude that maybe you should just take a little pride in the fact that someone has used your image elsewhere. Again, he wasn’t suggesting you roll over and take it. But maybe you could just chill a little. And you should also consider the fact that images with grotesque watermarks are less likely to be shared (not stolen, shared). It doesn’t matter how awesome your chicken pot pie is, if you have plastered your name right smack in the middle of it nobody wants to pin that shit. You are far better off “signing” your image with your blog name/address neatly displayed somewhere less offensive. That is advertising, not insecurity.