Marketing with Photos

Watermark Your Photos To Prevent Theft

June 29, 2012 by Charles Payet

In my last blog post about adding copyright information to your dental photos as a way to deter online theft of your work, the tutorial covered how to use a Metadata Template in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to add identifying information to every photo. This embedded information can be read by anyone who knows how to look; if they know, they may also know how to remove it (takes a little work), but a thief will probably move on to easier-to-steal photos instead of doing the extra work. Another step you can take, also easy to do in Lightroom, is to add a Watermark, and that’s what this tutorial will cover.

Why Use a Watermark?

As seen in the example above, a watermark is typically a logo, symbol, or other mark that is placed somewhere on a photos that identifies it as belonging to someone, in this case, anyone seeing this photo knows that “Smiles by Payet” has copyrighted this image. It’s pretty easy to see, and again, it may act as a deterrent to online theft, because anyone wanting to use it to represent their own work would have to laboriously edit the entire logo out of the photo. Yes, I overdid it just a teensy little bit to make my point, and no, I would never ruin a photo to this extent with such tasteless work, but you get the point.

The tricky part in using a watermark, as you can probably see, has to do with 3 issues:

Placement
Size
Opacity

While the point of a watermark is to protect your image, the point of your image is to showcase your work to existing or potential patients, with the goal that they will be impressed and call or schedule their treatment with you, not someone else. Poor placement of a watermark can ruin the whole image and defeat the real purpose of the image, so please…..be tasteful about it.

Watermark Size, Placement, and Opacity

For maximum protection (my opinion only), I recommend creating a very large watermark that can be placed directly across the middle of the photo, but making it highly translucent, thereby not covering up what you want to show. Doing so makes removal far more difficult for anyone wanting to steal your photo, unless they are highly skilled in Photoshop, and you generally can still see the photo well.

For the most tasteful protection, but the least effective, a small but fully opaque watermark can be placed in a corner. It’s the least effective simply because it’s the easiest to remove, especially with the “Content-Aware Fill” and “Content-Aware Healing” tools available since Photoshop CS5 and now CS6, but if you don’t like the watermark obscuring the image, it’s still better than nothing.

Personally, I’m still experimenting on my own watermarks, and if you want some of my different tries, check out some photos on both my Charlotte dentist office website and my personal photography website:

Smiles by Payet Dentistry
CDPayet Photography

How to Create a Watermark in Lightroom

In Lightroom, you can create either a Text or Graphical Watermark; as a general rule, I suggest the Text Watermark for one main reason: it’s a LOT EASIER. And here’s just how easy it is to create with 2 easy-to-understand screenshots.

Step 1: Go to the Edit option on the top menu, then scroll down to “Edit Watermarks”

Step 2: At the lower left is where you’ll type in the text for your watermark. The easiest way to get that (C) symbol is to open MS Word, type in the left parenthesis – capital C – right parenthesis and it will automatically convert it for you. Then just copy/paste it into the text box.

Step 3: Experiment! Seriously! You can see all the options on the right side – play around with them, see what you like, what you don’t like, and as you change things, you’ll see the preview change instantly. Change the text color – font – size – opacity – placement, etc.

Step 4: Name Your Preset

And you’re done!

Coming up next – how to apply a watermark to your photos during the Export process.

More Info on the Importance of Copyrighting Your Images

June 22, 2012 by Charles Payet

After my recent blog post on why embedding copyright information into your photos is so important, I was doing some additional reading on my Google+ Stream and came across this really useful and important video on why it’s so important to actually copyright your images, as well as how to do it. I learned a lot and need to take some additional steps myself based on what I learned…..check it out!

I will find more resources on the actual process of submitting your images for copyright protection in the very near future, as I’m learning a lot of valuable information in the process of writing these articles.

Image Copyright Protection

June 13, 2012 by Charles Payet

Ever worry that an unscrupulous web designer, colleague, or ad company might steal your images from your Facebook page, website, or other online source? If so, read on to learn some easy ways to help protect your work, provide legal coverage if necessary for action, and how to find out if your photos have been stolen.

Has Your Photography Been Stolen Online?

To my knowledge at this time, I’ve never had any of my online photos “stolen,” by which I mean no one has downloaded or “hot-linked” them for use on their on website or in other marketing media. That’s not to say it hasn’t happened, it just means I’ve never found any examples, because I don’t spend the time searching to find out.

Online Image Protection Has Limits

First off – if someone is REALLY determined to steal your photos, it is virtually impossible to stop it. Sure, there are ways to add “right-click” protection to stop the easy “save as” copying, and there are ways to hide the image file location to prevent someone using an HTML embed, but in the end, there are far more ways being created on a daily basis to get around them than there are ways to stop them. If hackers can break into major corporations and government agencies…….well, you get the idea, right? But since it’s unlikely you’re up against that kind of firepower, mostly you’re looking to keep unethical web designers and colleauges from using your work to advertise themselves. Fortunately, there are some easy and fast steps to do this with Photoshop Lightroom, and the best part is that, while the initial set-up takes a little time, after that it is virtually automatic and needs no more than a couple mouse-clicks…..seriously!

Creating Copyright Metadata Templates

The first step is to create a Metadata Template that can be embedded into your photos. Start at the Menu by choosing Metadata > Edit Metadata Presets, and you’ll see the following Dialog Box pop up (click for a larger view):

You don’t need to complete everything – total overkill. The ones you do want to complete are the following sections, and at the end of this article you’ll see a set of screenshots of the information I include.

IPTC Copyright
IPTC Creator
IPTC Image (parts of it)
Keywords

Click the little arrow next to each section, and once you’ve filled in your information, you’ll save this as a new Preset; the easiest thing to do is call it, “Dr. So-and-So,” where you fill in your name.

Applying a Metadata Preset

Once you’ve created your Preset, you have 2 options, and I recommend you do both to be on the safe side:

Apply that Preset to photos already in your Image Catalog, and
Set this Preset to be automatically applied whenever photos are imported.

To apply the Preset to existing photos, it’s almost ridiculously easy. Simply select all the photos to which you’ll apply the information, and go to the Right Sidebar of the Library Module > Metadata. When it opens, click on the “Preset” location and choose the Preset you created. You’ll be asked if you want to apply it to just the selected photos, all photos, or another combination. Select “All Photos” And BAM! You’re done with applying that information to photos you already have. Easy, huh?

When you’re ready to import new photos, it’s about this easy, too. Choose Import and select the source from which you’ll be importing the photos, most likely a memory card. Again in the Right Side Toolbar of the Import Dialog, you’ll see a tab titled “Apply During Import.” Directly under that, you’ll see an option to select a Metadata Preset. Do that, and once you’ve chosen the folder to which you want to import, click Import. And BAM! Every photo imported from now on will have that information added to it, unless you change that import option.

Ensure the “Right” Metadata Stays During Export, But Don’t Violate HIPAA

There are a couple items to be sure of when exporting images for use on your website, on a social media platform such as Facebook, etc:

Do NOT include your patient’s name in the file name or keywords (DUH!)
When using a Publish Service or Export dialog, make sure to NOT strip out the metadata

Suggested Metadata to Include

The following are taken directly from the template I have created within Lightroom at my office; for my personal photography, I obviously use different information.

Because this post ended up longer than anticipated, look for an upcoming post on how to easily apply a Watermark with Lightroom.

If you’ve ever had someone steal your photos, I’d love to know how you found out and what you did about it in the Comments below!

Photosmith iPad App Syncs with Lightroom

May 1, 2011 by Charles Payet

Ever since the iPad was released, many apps have been developed for photographers, but none have had much real editing functionality, nor the ability to easily work with desktop photography software. The Photosmith app is finally a real sign of change, and for dentists, this will be terrific. With the Camera Connection Kit, here’s all you have to do:

Take the pictures with your DSLR;
Plug the camera into the iPad with the Camera Connection Kit
Open the “Photos” app and import all the pictures (or just selected ones)
Open (or switch to) the Photosmith for iPad app
Show your patients
Create folders, add color or star ratings, keyword tags, other info
At the end of the day, sync all the pictures to Lightroom and it keeps all that info!

Press Release

Photosmith brings Lightroom synchronization to the iPad

Photosmith introduces sorting and tagging to photographers on the go

Atlanta, GA. April 26, 2011 – C Squared Enterprises, Inc has released Photosmith for the iPad. Photosmith brings the ability to manage photos using collections, keywords, tagging, ratings, EXIF, and IPTC metadata. Photographers no longer need to wait until they get back to their main computer or drag a laptop to sort through photos or show clients their latest results. With Photosmith, photographers can load their photos directly on the iPad, filter, sort, rate, and keyword while in the field/studio. When they get back to Adobe Lightroom on their Mac or PC they can sync all photos from the iPad to Lightroom and all of their tagging and rating will also transfer with no need to duplicate effort.

Photosmith improves the photographer’s digital workflow, especially flows with RAW images. Photosmith offers viewing of full RAW image data from the latest dSLR cameras in full fidelity and up to 100% zoom; even on 25+ megapixel images. Photosmith offers a grid view for quickly sorting through thumbnails and collections, a loupe view for viewing individual images and tagging, and a full screen view to maximize use of the screen. Users can assign a rating, choose a color label, view the basic EXIF data (shutter speed, ISO, f/stop, and more), or edit the title, caption, or a number of other IPTC fields. All these settings are synchronized with Lightroom using the free Photosmith plugin. Future changes made in Lightroom are saved back to the iPad during a sync as well. See more at: http://bit.ly/PhotosmithTour

Photosmith assists photographers on the go with sharing their photos too. Photos can be sent to Flickr, Facebook, Dropbox, or email. Those sent to Flickr and Facebook maintain their titles and keywords, allowing pros to quickly share and get feedback from their clients, or allows the causal photographer to share photos while on vacation.

Photosmith is the culmination of 24 months of effort and development continues to add new features over time. Users are encouraged to submit feedback and suggestions to help drive the future of the app.
The app is available worldwide for US$17.99 (or the approximate equivalent).

For more information please visit http://www.photosmithapp.com

Boosting Your Web Presence with Image SEO

April 2, 2011 by Charles Payet

Recently, in response to my post about improving patient communication by showing them their teeth, Sanjay Hirokedi asked if one can improve Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages/Positions) by optimizing images on Google Picasa, Flickr, Smugmug, and other online photo sharing sites, as well as your own dental website(s). The answer is both simple and complex, but the basic answer is YES, you can improve your Google SERPs by optimizing pictures. Here’s a little bit of how and why:

Content (including Pictures!) is King for Google, Bing, Yahoo

When it comes to the best way to improve your web presence in the search engines, always remember this motto: CONTENT IS KING. Search engines are all about relevent content, not just fluff, so besides linking strategies, proper use of headline tags (h1, h2, h3, etc), and other techniques, what you really want is information that your prospective patients are seeking. And yes….patients love to see pictures, because they’re easy to understand. So if you know how to add the right information to your pictures in the code “behind” the pictures, you can tell the search engines that your pictures are relevant, and the pictures will be indexed and findable in searches.

As an example, I did a Google Images search for “porcelain veneers pictures charlotte,” and this is what came up. All of the pictures with a green arrow by them are from one or more of my websites, and if you were to do a similar search, then hover your mouse over each image, it would pop up for you to see from where Google found it.

(click for a larger version)

Keywords in the “Alt text” and File Names are SEO Tools

When looking at the code for a picture online, you would see something like this example:

The yellow highlighted text is the file name, and as you can see, in the file name itself, I have included some words people might use to search, “8 veneers,” and “after.” I didn’t put the word “picture” in, as Google already knows it’s a picture, so it’s a bit redundant. DO NOT use file names like those that come from the camera, i.e. “_MG_9804.jpg,” as that has no meaning, and no one will ever search for a dentist with that, I promise!

The green highlighted text is what is called the “alternate text” of the picture, which is used by search engines for several purposes, but for our purposes, there is 1 very important one:

Relevant content – again! “After picture,” “smile,” and “8 porcelain veneers.” Right back to the most important part of all SEO – RELEVANT CONTENT. When you add the right alternate text, with appropriate keywords, you are telling the search engines what the picture is about. Using a boring file name like _MG_9804 tells the googlebots absolutely nothing about the picture, so it’s irrelevant. But keywords? Bingo!

To be honest, these aren’t even the best file names and alt text that could be used; they’re from a website (TheCharlotteDentist) I haven’t updated in quite a while. For a far more detailed explanation of how to properly use keywords in file names, alt text, etc., I highly recommend The Website Owner’s Manual for Dentists, by Dr. Mike Barr. At only $347, it will be one of THE best purchases you will ever make for your dental practice if you have a website.

Important Note: everything you just read applies equally well to social media sites AND your own practice websites!

Social Media Sharing of Pictures: Which Work Best?

This topic is now moving into the realms of the more speculative, because while there may be books and/or research that has done real comparisons among the different social media photo sharing sites, I don’t know of it, and I don’t really have the time to look. Just so you know. 😉 Therefore, what I am about to share with you is based exclusively on my own experience with the following 4:

Flickr (a bit more than beginning, but learning a lot these days)
Google PicasaWeb (beginnger/intermediate)
Facebook (intermediate level of experience)
SmugMug (reasonably advanced user)

As can be seen, I have the most experience with SmugMug, with which I built my photography website. I do pay the $150/year fee for a PRO version because of some important features if you want to sell pictures, as I do, but most of you won’t need to do that. However, if you do, email me for a Coupon Code that will save you some $$ on any level subscription. 😀

I really like the layout that SmugMug provides for editing the captions and keywords of large numbers of photos at once, as seen here for the following reasons:

Add keywords to a lot of pictures all at once or individually
Plenty of space in the keywords/phrases section to see ALL of the ones you’ve added at once
Ability to add hyperlinks (for example, to your website page on cosmetic dentistry, or CEREC, whatever) in the Caption/Description
Neat, organized layout onscreen

Flickr is reasonably close in ease of use, but the things I don’t like about their batch editing section are:

No way to add the same keyword to a lot of pictures at once
No ability to have hyperlinks in the description/caption
Not as neatly laid out onscreeen
The line to add keywords is just 1 line high, and you can’t see all the keywords/phrases at once.

Facebook has a pretty easy-to-use layout, too, but it has some VERY distinct disadvantages that bug the heck out of me:

It does not allow you to add distinct keywords, just a caption/description for each picture
No hyperlinks in the captions
You can only get to it when initially uploading pictures to an album! YEESH! And that’s why I don’t have a screenshot right now, ’cause I don’t need to add any pictures right now. I’ll add it later.

Lastly, Google PicasaWeb is about on the same level as Facebook, although it does allow you to add keywords distinct from the descriptions, but as with Flickr, not as easily, and not to more than 1 picture at a time.

Google does have 1 VERY distinct advantage, though: it’s part of Google! Naturally, any photos added to Google’s PicasaWeb will be indexed rather quickly. Whether or not this affects their findability? I don’t know.

Add Keywords in Adobe Lightroom Before Uploading

While you can’t add a long caption within Lightroom, you CAN add all the keywords and phrases you like before you ever upload them, assuming you are using any of the Export or Publish features. There are also Lightroom plugins that allow you to upload and keep track of the uploaded pictures right inside the program, as I described when talking about Jeffrey Friedl’s LR plugins for social media exports.

So when all is said and done, is it worth it to use photos to improve your website optimization? ABSOLUTELY! The pictures alone won’t do it, but they can, and should, be an important part of building your web presence, and online photo sharing sites can also help.

Adobe Lightroom Export Plugin to Facebook Fan Pages

March 19, 2011 by Charles Payet

For a long time, one small barrier has kept me from uploading a lot more photos to my office Facebook Fan Page: Facebook.com/TheCharlotteDentist, and that is the simple fact that Lightroom did not have the ability to upload directly (no Publish Service) to Fan Pages — only to Personal Pages. I had to export the pictures from Lightroom to another folder, THEN go to Facebook and upload them from there. Not that it is a lot of work, but it required more steps than how easily I can Publish photos to my SmugMug photography site, CDPayetPhotography.com, where I have photo galleries of 6MonthSmiles Invisible Adult Braces patients, porcelain veneer before/after pictures, and more.

Jeffrey Friedl’s Lightroom Plugin Exports Directly to Fan Page Albums

Well, tonight (March 20th, 2011) I was researching some material to put in my upcoming Townie Meeting 2011 lecture on dental digital photography workflow, and through various roundabout ways, I ended up back on the blog of Jeffrey Friedl, who has been creating and updating highly functional Adobe Lightroom plugins for as long as Lightroom has been around. And I happened to read this very exciting statement:

Note: as of version 20110116.147, the plugin can upload to albums on fan/group pages.

Needless to say, I immediately downloaded the new plugin and registered it (it’s Donationware, which means it is “almost” free, which means all you have to do is pay the minimum 1 US penny via PayPal for unlimited registration/use of the plugin) with a $20 donation. With just a minute needed to authenticate to Facebook, suddenly I had the easiest way possible to send all the pictures I could want directly to Facebook and even keep track of them within Lightroom. You can even set it up for multiple Fan Pages, as I’ve shown here.

I highly recommend Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for dentists, and with this Facebook plugin, it became an even better option, given how important Social Media is becoming in promoting our dental practices.