Posted

Nov 7th 2007

Mood

Annoyed

==WARNING: Kinda long rant ahead.==

I can't understand how some people see constructive criticism as insulting or 'throwing a fit'. That really makes me laugh.

Can anyone explain me how does this makes sense:

What if you go to X-person's profile. You look at their pictures. One of them picks your attention. It is a really nice picture. Everything in it is good, y'know; good lighting, nice subject, sharp focus, etc.

The image is perfect, but there is this big as hell © sign in the middle of it as a watermark.

I'm going to give you an example:


Everything is okay there, but that © there is making the image lose its niceness; I put my name too small in that corner too... and that's no good.

It it obvious now we have to be extra careful with our photography. But why add such a simple thing as a ©?

That doesn't mean much by itself unless the person's name is next to it.

Just adding a © sign will not stop a thief from stealing your work if they really like it.

Okay, let's try this.

I want to steal that image I posted up there. I saved that image to my computer. I see that the photographer's name down there is really small and can be removed.

I open Photoshop, cut a bit of the image, use smudge, copy/paste, and bingo!


Where is the other watermark? Where are the signs the image does actually belong to that Alexis?

I mean, c'mon, I just did this in less than four minutes in Photoshop. Think what Photoshop pros could do!

Here I tried a full blown erasure of the old name:


Do you see the old name? That took me less than ten minutes!

How is that copyright symbol by itself is supposed to make thieves restrain from stealing it?

I mean, as I did there, they could just cut off a few areas of the top or bottom of the image where the user's name is, and they would end up with 95% of the image.

And if they are experts, they can just erase your name completely. What can happen? They can say it is theirs.

"What? It has the same watermark that X user uses? Well, they have no proof it is theirs. It doesn't show that persons name anywhere. Does it?"

Even a watermark like this is better:


It is in an area you can't just simply copy/paste, and it is big enough.

And another example:

I added more than TWENTY watermarks there. Can you see them all? They are randomly put, and it is next to impossible to eliminate and find them all. And I don't say that will fully prevent thieves, but still, it helps out quite a bit.

And at the same time, they don't take away anything from the image.

Now I ask:

-How is 'throwing a fit' telling someone their watermark is making the image not as pleasing as it would be with an improved/safer and more appealing watermark?

-How does putting a big © sign in an image help when your name is a little dot in a corner, where it can be erased easily?

I don't get it.

They say they use that as a way to protect their work, but instead of doing so, it takes away from it, and it fails to actually do its work.

It is sad and disappointing when people call themselves photographers, yet instead of accepting the constructive criticism from other people and therefore improving(or explaining why they think that it is not needed), they just hide the messages or delete them.

THEN they block you from their profiles.

Immature, eh?

It is even more disappointing when they say they have been capturing shots PROFESSIONALLY for years.

So much for years as a *professional*. I thought they actually accepted input and tried to improve.

As my girlfriend said:
"Professional photographers shouldn't be immature enough to block honest critique, which is what you've done."

Hell, when someone tells me about something that can be improved in my pictures, I accept it and try to improve it.

Or if I disagree, I try to explain my reasons, instead of just hiding/deleting the comment the person made AND blocking the user from my page.

I'm not complaining or trying to insult people; it is just that it sucks when you try to use some of your time to help people and they end up being like that, when they actually try to be and look as if they were professional.

UPDATE: Funny thing is, it seems that person changed their watermark, right after erasing comments and blocking me.

So they deny it is constructive criticism, then hide the comments, and then out of nowhere, new watermark!

Heh, it seems the comments did actually hit a weak spot, but y'know, pride sometimes can backfire...

Not accepting you are wrong sometimes ends up ruining your chances at many things in life.

Anyways.

What do you think about this?


====


By the way... damn how I want a cappuccino right now. Hmmm. Some hot chocolate too. AND cocoa pebbles. AND some ice cream. Hmmmmm. That would be wonderful.


Oh, by the way, Sir Milton and Dilbert are doing pretty good. Now their wings are fully white. They are eating so much too, holy crap! They just fill up their crop until they have a really big bump on their chest!

They may be getting old, but they rock! I have so many pictures of them that ended up quite good... it is so hard to choose just a few to upload here.

Oh, and I got a call from a factory that hires people with eye/body handicaps a few days ago. I may be getting a job in the next week, woo!