Please.


Please.


Please.


PLEASE for the love of god.


DON'T PUT YOUR WATERMARK IN THE CENTER OF THE GODDAMN PICTURE!



For one, it's incredibly distracting from the picture. It's like having someone wave a hand in front of your face really fast while you're trying to look at a picture in an art exhibit. It's obnoxious and annoying to the fans and anyone who's just trying to view the picture. I've even seen pictures that have watermarks that COVER UP THE WHOLE DAMN PICTURE.


SPECIALLY if it's a commission as well. Don't plaster the word "COMMISSION" right over the damn center of the picture of someone's commission. That's just plain RUDE to the person who spent THEIR money for something like that. Now I know why you artists do that, it's because you don't want someone to steal your art of course and claim it as there's. Which is understandable of course, but you DON'T NEED TO SHOVE YOUR WATERMARK IN PEOPLE'S FACES.


What you SHOULD do is put the watermark in a small part of the picture like the corner, WHERE MOST ARTISTS PUT IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. Now if it's a sketch, then put it in a small part of the drawing, like the foot or the tail so it can't be removed easily. Watermarks that are placed on a full on detailed colored picture, should at least be placed at the corner of the picture, mainly because it has color, shading and all the details surrounding it, that way it's not easily removable.


ALSO, another thing you can do instead of plastering a watermark on it is leave a signature, just a simple scribble of your initials or even your full name if you want. That's easier and simpler then making a watermark for your pictures. Just place it in the same areas as you would with a normal watermark.


One other thing, don't put the "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE" as your watermark. Why? Because it's pointless. Saying that on a picture won't do much, because people will share it around REGARDLESS if you say so or not. It's like trying to give a wild animal orders, you can tell it to not do something, but it'll just shrug it off and continue on it's way. I know that's a bit difficult to clench onto, but, unfortunately, art sharing is a part of the internet, if you put your picture online, it will be shared around.


NOW, before you go crazy about that, Remember, THERE'S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STEALING ART AND SHARING IT. I know people who've shared my art on a couple of websites before, even Fchan. As an artist, I'm flattered that someone enjoyed my art enough to share it around like that, as long as they aren't TAKING CREDIT for my art, then it's fine.


I also know you guys want to be credited for your art when it's shared around. A lot of the people who share art on sites like fchan, or u18chan, etc, they credit the artist in the tags or when people ask. Not to mention even on fchan, the picture that it's taken from, it usually has the artist's name in the file. So there's no worry about that. If your still really paranoid about not getting credit, then just put your artist name in the watermark, or even put down your art page, whether it be your FA or SoFurry, etc. like what CheetahPaws or what Wolfblade does. They put down the address of their art page.




Now I'm not saying this as an order or anything, that would be stupid if it was, I'm just asking you artists to just please for the love of god don't put you're watermark on the center of the picture.



TL;DR version: Please don't put watermarks on the center of the picture, it's really goddamn obnoxious