If a photographer charged me that much money for a photo album, then had the cheek to stamp his name all over the thumbnail-size jpegs he supplied, I'd probably watermark his face. With my fist.
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Removing watermarks from images
- Thread starter FadeToBlack
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In Photoshop it is three keystrokes:
Open your photo,
Command-A
Command-X
Command-S
Watermark gone, simple as that.
Well, maybe you shouldn't have agreed to that arrangement then. When you hired the photographer there are certain provisions, either built into the foundation law and/or the contract you signed, that you agreed to. So, you are stealing the photographer's income. Don't come to me looking for sympathy.
He's not "stealing" anyone's income. If anything, the photographer is holding his wedding photos to ransom.
Those pictures are worthless to anybody else. The photographer has already fleeced him out of a large amount of money for a few hours very easy work. If he wants some extra shots to put on Facebook or whatever, it shouldn't be a problem.
Wedding photography is a scam.
I'm a professional photographer. I've never shot weddings because, frankly, they work too hard. For every hour you see a wedding photographer in action, there are countless hours of unseen, and often unpaid, time.
I am speaking of course of good and professional photographers. I am assuming that the photographer the OP is talking about fits into that category. If the OP didn't like the terms, then they shouldn't have agreed to them. The photographer did the work based on certain expectations, and quoted a fee. To not pay the fee (by removing the watermarks, for instance) is very much stealing the photographers income in this case.
I still think it's a scam, like every other overpriced service attached to the wedding industry. And it's not "countless" hours of unpaid work. It's a definite fixed amount at an extortionate rate.
And removing watermarks is not stealing. Those pictures are, to all intents and purposes, worthless to the photographer. He cannot sell them because nobody will buy them. Having already leeched £1500 from the only person who would be interested in them, the greedy photographer has bled his market dry.
Then don't sign the contract. No one forces you choose one photographer over another. Or even any photographer. But when you hire a photographer you agree to certain terms.
It only feels like 'countless' hours to the photographer who has been editing 1500 to 3000 images. To have 500 images available to show the client (the post above dated July 18) requires several times that many total shots taken. Lets call it 1500 total shots because the photographer nails 1 out of 3 images on average.
There is probably about 3 to 6 hours prior to the wedding for the photographer to show their portfolio and make the sale, and then to coordinate with the couple what is needed on the day. Often the couple change their plans - sometimes multiple times. The photographer needs to be on site and ready prior to anything happening. If it is an unfamiliar location they may have already scouted it in the days prior to wedding. All of this is not directly charged for, and is part of the package. Before the wedding they have had to create a filing system for that customer to ensure that the customer gets their photos and not somebody else's. That all the correspondence is filed into one place for future reference, etc etc
Then there is the day itself. This is what you see. They have brought expensive camera gear that needs to be replaced/repaired on a regular basis. They should also have a backup camera system for 'just in case'. They may have brought an assistant. They should have liability insurance (a cost to them). They likely are also paying into a group benefits plan (since they are self employed they have no employment benefits) and belong to several professional associations that help them to stay current with current technologies and expectations. They have likely had to pay for a business license, income taxes of course, sales taxes perhaps. They are also paying to have an office/studio somewhere.
They also have just one chance to get it right. There are no reshoots here.
Then after the wedding they go through the photos. They need to cull the bad ones and mark the good ones for further processing. Lets say the photographer is very efficient, and can go through 1500 photos taking no more than 15 seconds each on average.... just to pick the 500 'keepers'. That is 6.25 hours. Before they have done any real post production work.
Now they have just 500 photos to process. If it takes them just one minute to look at, assess, and edit each photo then they are working for over 8 hours. I can tell you that 1 minute is not long enough. If it takes 5 minutes, then the photographer is putting in a full week non-stop to edit the photos - on top of all the time listed above.
Photographer needs to pay for the computer equipment, including replacement/repair on a regular basis. More insurance, etc etc.
Then, once the editing is done there are several more hours to package up the project, write up the invoice, meet with the client, etc etc.
On top of all this, the photographer spends a great deal of time on activities that have nothing to do any particular client. They take time to train. They take time to learn new software. They spend a great deal of time marketing. For paying client a photographer meets, there are several clients who are just shopping around. Of all the 'paid' work a photographer does must be done around the 'unpaid' time of meeting prospective clients.
I'm sorry that you seem to have had a bad experience. If you were fleeced by a unscrupulous photographer, well... that is too bad. Unfortunately there are bad apples everywhere. But in my experience wedding photographers work very hard and earn every penny. At least the good ones do.
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I appreciate the detailed reply but I don't think you've addressed the main issue, which is that beyond the initial fee the pictures are essentially worthless to the photographer. He can't make any more money out of them, because he has got every possible penny out of the client, but he still defaces those Facebook-res extra pics before supplying them.
Also:
Also:
They have to show up to work on time, and make a folder on their computer.
Once every couple of years they might spend a weekend's profit on a new camera body.
He's not going to be doing a full edit on 500 photos when he's only going to print a few of them. They'll be turned into 640x480 jpegs and watermarked, and he'll process the handful the customer is allowed to choose for £1500.
My experience was actually great. For about £130 I got a printed album with 50 pictures plus every raw shot from the day, no watermarks, no copyright. It was in Africa - not so many conmen, I guess.
Removing watermarks IS a copyright violation. If you wanted use of the photos beyond the terms you agreed to, you should have shot them yourself or found a photographer naive enough to give them to you.
Watermarks are there for a reason, you cant remove them without paying the artist for a non-watermarked copy.
Why the hell is this thread from 2005 keep getting commented on :[
Why the hell is this thread from 2005 keep getting commented on :[
No, they are not worthless. They are worth whatever the client is willing to pay. If the client wants to pay for access, then the photos are worth something. They are only worthless if the photographer is willing to give them away for nothing.
They usually quote for x number of hours on the day, for example 11am to 4pm. Before they even leave 'for work' there are a few hours spent making the sure the equipment is all there and that it works, and packing it up. Remember, no reshoots are possible, so they will have ensured that they have everything they need, plus extras. They also arrive early too.
And, no - it's not just a creating a folder. They will have several sheets from the initial interview with the clients' shooting requests. Which family members to group together, etc etc This then creates a shooting list for the photographer. They will have a contract to file. Within the contract are likely to be amendments. They will also need to keep track of what photos are provided to the client.
They should be using Digital Asset Manager to file their images, which makes life much much easier than the days of film. Nonetheless, there is quite a bit of setup for a new client. Each photo is tracked. What happens to that photo is tracked. Is it culled or is it a keeper? What sizes does it need to be? How many copies? If there are albums involved, which albums does that image need to appear in. Remember that this is happening for each and every one of the 500 images.
You obviously haven't priced pro-level cameras lately. And it is not the cameras so much as the lenses. Or the computers. Or the printers, if the photographer prints in-house. Just my printer would run several weekends worth of profit (if I did weddings) and I probably have more camera than wedding photographer needs (but not the lenses) and it more in line with the cost of a car. A new car, though luckily not a luxury one.
They may edit the photo again if it is being printed, but each photo is going to be edited to bring it to a level that will encourage the client to print it. If the rough images are crap, that is the initial impression the client takes away - and the photographer then risks no print sales at all.
Great. You got you wanted. You also got the quality you paid for. And if you hire a more expensive photographer, you agree to certain terms. If you are not happy with the quality then complain about the quality from that particular photographer. But please don't paint the entire profession with tar. Of course there are less than professional 'professional' photographers.... checking around for references and their portfolio will identify them. You did check their portfolio and references, eh?
I guess it's something people are still interested in. I'm sure the technology will get there eventually, so it doesn't have to be done by hand. I used to work on magazines for a major publisher, and we'd remove watermarks from images as a matter of course. Cloning out website logos, that sort of thing.
I should add that these were images of dubious provenance in the first place, so not stock photos or anything. Usually pictures that websites had got from overseas PR agencies that we didn't have access to, then stamped with their logo.
Ummm...yeah. As has already been mentioned, it's pretty obvious you don't know a lot of professional level photographers. The ones I know spend thousands on gear every year, not only on cameras but on lenses and accessories and a surprising amount on storage and backup.
The cost of the photos also isn't simply the time spend editing the photo, like any business model the price incorporates the time spent on the actual work as well as overhead and money that helps cover time spent in other areas of the process. A good wedding photographer spends a whole lot more time than the day of and exporting photos in LightRoom.
All that being said, I know a lot of photographers that are going away from the charge per print model these days now that things are all digital. They'll still charge for an album and you can order prints through them, but they'll also provide a cd of images you can reproduce yourself. Their package prices do reflect that and they aren't cheap, but like most any purchase you usually get what you pay for.
After eight years or so I doubt this advice will be of any use to the OP...Photoshop > Content Aware will do it almost automatically and most of the time very well enough that no more intervention is needed.
After eight years this is probably more relevant; I buy a lot of stock images for my clients. Before buying I download comps which all you know are watermark, some of them so heavily watermarked they are useless even as comps to show the client. So I erase all the watermarks on them and don't feel a bit guilty if I'm breaking their rules or not...because I know I'll be buying from them one or the other.
After eight years this is probably more relevant; I buy a lot of stock images for my clients. Before buying I download comps which all you know are watermark, some of them so heavily watermarked they are useless even as comps to show the client. So I erase all the watermarks on them and don't feel a bit guilty if I'm breaking their rules or not...because I know I'll be buying from them one or the other.
Gosh, I acknowledge the CREATOR and my lord Jesus Christ, but give me a break. You can remove it any number of ways. It's easy or difficult depending on how you do it. Watermarks are often used by people and companies other than the creators, such as clip art suppliers who do not hold a copyright on the image but are just holding it hostage until you pay. .
Hi. I have a similar situation wherein I also need my picture for personal use, sadly it has a watermark on it. I haven't tried pixlr.com, but I've searched and tried a lot of tools that I found on the internet. Luckily, I found one which is Apowersoft Watermark Remover, it is a software that can easily remove the watermark on a photo. Now it is easier for me to remove watermarks.
Use the Marker tool or Magic Wand tool to select a watermark area with one click then Erase watermark from it.