I'm slowly going back through all the Squshie photos and updating them. Quite a few I have better pictures of now. Some need better tags and info. I'm also slowly but surely adding watermarks to the photos. You can see examples of the new watermarks in the photos I interspersed below because this blog post is long and a bit ranty and rambly.
I'm always back and forth about watermarks, but I've finally decided to add little, and hopefully not too obtrusive ones to all the Squshie images.
But why? Well mostly because of all the websites that are about sharing things you find on the internet like Pinterest and Tumblr and probably a whole bunch I'm not familiar with. I like those sites. I think they are fun. You see lots of cool stuff you might not have normally seen in your internet wanderings.That's awesome!
Know what I hate about those sites though? People who don't credit the original sources. People that don't link back to the original source. People who edit links so they link back to their own blog or Tumblr or whatever other thing they might use. Drives me crazy!
One reason it drives me crazy is because not giving credit is horrible. People should be credited for the work they do. That's pretty obvious I think, but some people have trouble with it.
The second reason it drives me crazy is because if I see an awesome plush, or photo, or drawing, or painting on a sharing site I often want to see more work by the person who made the thing that is awesome. It makes me so mad when I click on something shared and it doesn't take me to the original source. Now, to see more of what I wanted to see, I have to consult google for similar images instead of just clicking a link that takes me where I want to go. Grrrrrr!
Sometimes though the shared images have watermarks. Super! That makes it much easy to find them when the shared image doesn't have a link to the source. I can just type in the watermark info and pretty easily find the original content maker and see more of their work.
That is why I'm adding watermarks. So if people see a Squshie image floating around on Tumblr, or google, or Pinterest hopefully the watermark will give them a starting place if they want to search.
I know watermarks are easily erased or changed. Dishonest people always find ways around things =/ People who take the time to erase watermarks need to find better things to do with their time.
I thinks losts of people who share on sites don't necessarily have bad intentions. They forget to give credit. They re-blog/re-pin not noticing the previous poster neglected to give credit. Sometimes a perfectly credited image links to nothing because the original content source was edited at some point. So on and so on.
I don't mind people sharing the Squshie images. It makes me happy to know you want to share them with your friends and followers. I just want people to able to find them if they see something they like =)
Sorry about the rambling some what ranting post. Sometimes I just gotta rant =/
What do other people think about watermarks? Love them? Hate them? Do you use them too?