Copyright information on photographs

[Anne Wright]

I'm almost ready to begin uploading photographs to my blog! And since I have to take a few days off from scanning - I'm out of archival storage pages for the negatives - I have time to get some of the pictures I've scanned ready for the web.

I'm going to only upload "web size" images and not provide links to higher resolution versions. Information on how to contact me is already on the blog and will be expanded.

I'd thought about putting a watermark on the pictures but then I found this article: I Can Remove Your Watermark with No Problem…

That sent me in a different direction - expanding the IPTC and XMP data attached to the photos. I searched for "metadata" and found this article: Creating a Metadata Template in Adobe Photoshop CS through CS4 Now I've set up a template to apply the data (the process works just about the same in PS C6 though some of the screens have changed). And the beauty is I can add the information and keywords to tag the images as I apply the metadata to each batch of pictures!

I wanted to get the opinion of people here - should I still apply a watermark? I'm not thinking of one that would obscure the images, just a discreet label on the corner pointing people back to my website or the blog.

And is metadata the way to go for a non-professional that wants to share photos, but does not want just anyone to steal them and post them without some notice of where they came from?

I'm not sure I can legitimately copyright the images. I'm not the photographer (for some of the pictures it's not certain who the photographer was) and I'm not the executor or anyone in charge of the estates of my grandfather or my father (eventually I want to put up some of his photos, too). I just want to provide some attribution and contact information.