Watermarking: An Underutilized Photography Gallery Feature

March 16, 2022

min read

ne of the most powerful, yet underutilized, gallery features we see amongst CloudSpot users is watermarking! Watermarking images adds a level of protection and professionalism to your brand, ensuring that images are downloaded at their highest resolution while protecting your work when posted online and printed independently. With CloudSpot, you can share watermarked images with your clients in just a few clicks. No need to juggle multiple sets of files… simply upload your watermark(s), dial in your settings, and send off your galleries!

Wondering where to get started with watermarking your images? We’re breaking down the basics while sharing some tips and tricks to help you make the most of our updated Watermark feature!

What is a watermark?

Simply put, a watermark is a logo or piece of text that appears over a photo. Watermarks typically have a degree of opacity, so viewers can still enjoy the image! Oftentimes, you can identify the photographer through the watermark, but that isn’t a requirement.

‍Click here to learn more about how to upload watermarks to your CloudSpot Account.

Why should I use a watermark?

There are countless reasons why a photographer may want to use a watermark— we invite you to get creative with this feature! To keep things simple, we’re breaking down three of the most common reasons photographers choose to watermark their images:

Avoiding client screenshots

Many clients are accustomed to taking screenshots of images to use for social media and aren’t accustomed to walking through a download process, no matter how simple. This is a product of how technology has evolved throughout the years, but as a photographer, screenshots are less than ideal. You want your work looking your best, so to avoid clients posting to social media or printing in a low resolution. Watermarking is a great solution that will protect your images and alert you when a client does take a screenshot. By watermarking your images, your clients will be encouraged to download the social media or full-size resolution images the correct way.

Keep in mind, with CloudSpot, you can always set the system to remove watermarks on download, preventing screenshots and encouraging download! Click here to learn how!

Encourage digital sales

This point will be entirely dependent on your overall package structure! That said, if you include a select number of digital downloads with your photography package or require clients to pay for any digitals they receive from their session, you’ll definitely want to add a watermark to your galleries. This will prevent client screenshots while encouraging clients to walk through the correct process for purchasing and downloading digital files. Click here to learn more about digital product sales!

Receive image credit

If your images will be distributed to an audience where you would like to receive on-image credit, you’ll want to add watermarks to your image files. This will ensure that any images that are downloaded will display your name, logo, or another identifier on your image.

The best part about CloudSpot? Watermarks will be automatically applied to images uploaded to your gallery meaning you won’t have to watermark each image individually in Adobe Lightroom or PhotoShop. Talk about lots of time saved and peace of mind, knowing credit will be given where it’s due! Click here to learn more about watermarking downloads!

Multiple Watermark Usage

With the most recent update to CloudSpot, you can add up to THREE different watermarks to one CloudSpot Account! 🙌 We invite you to get creative with this new update, but just in case you were hoping for some inspiration, here are a few common ways we anticipate CloudSpot Users utilizing this feature right away: