Watermarking Photos

[Mitchell]

Anytime.

[cre8ivbonsai]

Hi Leigh,

Great to see you're taking the time to catalogue the NBPCA collection, I assume these watermarked images are for posting on your website? ... watermarking is definitely a good idea for the public domain, acts like a signature on artworks etc.

Therefore I hope you're also archiving the original HR (High Resolution) photos without watermarks for possible future print publication, as with bonsai, you can easily reduce the size (and therefore the photo quality) but once it done you can't go back and increase photo size without decreasing quality (unless you've saved the original elsewhere first), same with the watermark - very hard to remove after the layer has been compressed/embedded.
Most publishers won't publish photos with watermarks obstructing the image or will try to crop it out (usually supplying credits within the text) and usually ask for the highest resolution versions available (printers request 300dpi).

Hopefully you've already done this, and my advise above will be a non-issue... I expect there is some wonderful examples in the NBPCA collection (when I finally get to Canberra, it's the first place I'll be visiting) that should have great potential for being published in all their glory!

Otherwise I can't wait to see some of the collection up online (with watermarks) .


Best regards,
Ryan

[Mitchell]

Ryan, I do not believe they are storing RAW copies of the images, just the jpg'd version after compression. I could be wrong though.

However I see no need for RAWS, but do see the relevance to keeping wm and non wm copies as you said.
When you say HR shorts I assume your talking RAWS?

[Grant Bowie]

We keep high res pictures as archive and will only watermark pics that are compressed and going on line .

Grant

[Leigh Taafe]

We are also only shooting in JPG. We will only shoot in RAW if there is a special instance where would would be specifically shooting for a publication and it required PS editing.

[cre8ivbonsai]

Sounds good guys...

Leigh and Grant - Good luck with all the photographic endeavors, can't wait to see some of these magnificent bonsai displayed online big job I bet but well worth it in the end

We usually only work/receive "tiff" or "jpeg" file format supplied by the photographer after they have adjusted and compressed the RAW files - as RAW files ARE to large to be archiving.

Mitchell - HR (High Resolution) – in the publishing industry – resolution equates to the dpi or ppi value, HR is a commercial printing terminology (as opposed to home desktop laser inkjets printers) describing the size of a printed image and it's technical quality, i.e. 20cm x 30cm @ 300dpi (dots per inch also known as ppi or pixels per inch), the resolution here is 300, the larger the dpi value the sharper the image (especially visible when you zoom in). 300dpi is commonly used as the benchmark for printing resolution to achieve the best quality out of an image on the press, however evolving technology is seeing commercial printers now being able to print up to 1200 even 2400 dpi so achieving tremendous clarity even to the point of not being able to see a defined dot or rosette under magnification.

Images optimized for screen resolution and viewing online are commonly set at around 72 dpi (however most websites advise just a min/max pixel x pixel measurement, eliminating added confusion) this gives good visual quality, but keeps files small enough to allow for fast online refresh rates, but also gives poor output quality (blur and pixellation) when attempting to print, thus referred to as LR (Low Resolution).

Hope this gives a bit of insight into the printing/publishing industry, I learn so much from everyone else on this website, I finally found a topic that I could share some of my professional knowledge around (even if it isn't strictly bonsai related ) hope it was informative for someone.

Ryan

[Mitchell]

Yes that's where I thought you were heading, I assume they are using the Canon JPG software for compression/convertion.
I thought you were being technical, as in processing/storing of raw images for later use, also considered a HR copy. I don't consider anything compressed with camera supplied software to be HR anymore, that's where I got confused, thanks for the insight.

I keep RAW and web, if I need to process the image at high mag, I return to the raw and start from there, for one to know what type of resolution it should be saved JPG format in, you would need to know then what level of processing is needed on it.

[cre8ivbonsai]

...agreed I find camera software teadously restrictive... probably cause I use Adobe software (Photoshop etc) everyday - I know how it all works, oh and I'm on a Mac so there's never been much alternative ... it's all about what suits the user really (and what you can justify spending )

... anyway time to brush up my actual photography skills