I’ve been mulling over this decision for some time. As I thought about it, I wanted to balance my desire to let people enjoy my photos with my very real need to retain the ability to sell my photographs, because I do want that to become a larger source of income for me than it has been thus far.
I think I may have reached a happy medium, and I hope I won’t regret what I’ve already begun to do. As of last week, I’ve been publishing my images at a much larger resolution — 1920 pixels on the longest side vs. 800 pixels previously. This means that you, the reader who sees this, will be able to download them and use as desktop backgrounds, without seeing a decrease in the photo quality as it fills up your screen. As a matter of fact, you’ll be able to use my images on monitors up to 24″ or more in size (1920×1200) or on HDTVs of any size, without seeing a decrease in quality. I am also resizing all of them to an aspect ratio of 16:10, so they’ll fit natively on widescreen displays.
Now, what am I not doing? I am not posting them at their native 240 dpi, as my Canon 5D gives them to me. I am posting them at 72 dpi, which is the native dpi spec of computer screens everywhere. I am doing this because I want to discourage the making of large prints from my photos, since I’d like to make money from those prints. This also makes it a little harder for people to blow them up to larger sizes for serious commercial work, which is where I also hope to make money.
I am also not removing my copyright notice from the photos. You’ll see it as a small watermark in the lower left corner that says “(c) raoulpop.com”. I want to keep that there to let people know that while I may be giving my photos away, I am not relinquishing my copyright, nor am I moving to a Creative Commons type of license, which I believe is inadequate for photographs. I also realize that the photos will get edited in various photo editing programs, and any meta-data will unwittingly get wiped from them. The watermark is the only sensible way to tell people down the line that I made a certain photo. I do wish Lightroom would let me format the watermark in some way, but for now, that’s what it gives me, and I’m not going to run all my published photos through Photoshop just to put a watermark on them.
Am I opening myself up for theft? Yes. There’ll be unscrupulous people (I hesitate to call them people) who will likely steal my photos and try to profit from them. For them, I should point out that I do register my images with the US Copyright Office, and I wouldn’t mind getting a six-figure payout.
For you decent folks out there, I’ll be happy to know that you get a little joy from looking at my photos at a resolution where you can actually enjoy them. Go ahead and download them and use them as desktop backgrounds, put them on your HDTV, email them to your friends, use them on your website, whatever. As long as it’s personal, non-commercial use, and you give me credit, it’s okay with me.
If you’re a company or some kind of organization that wants to use my photos in some way, please get in touch with me first to clear that use with me and to pay for the license. I’ll do my best to accommodate your needs.
Okay, so where do you partake of this fantastic offering? There are wo places where you can get it:
- My photo catalog.
- My Flickr stream. I’ve opened up access to the All Sizes button. Download away.
Remember to play nice. Here’s how to use my photos. Please obey the rules listed there when using my photos for free, and if you’ll end up licensing some, then you’ll make me very happy. Thanks.
Raoul Pop 
Pingback: Say hello to my photography catalog by Raoul Pop
I always had problem thinking in DPI when we’re talking about a simple JPG file (or any bitmap format). If my understanding is correct (I don’t want Tesla bashing me!;) )
Your 1920px photo can be printed at 300dpi. But it’ll not be larger than ( 1920 px ÷ 300 dpi = ) 6.4 inches wide. And it can be displayed on a screen at 72dpi and it’ll be ( 1920 px ÷ 72 dpi = ) 26.6 inches! 🙂
There’s no 1920px at 300dpi and a 1920px at 72dpi. For me, a pixel is a pixel. It can be big or small (depending on the media where it’s shown), but when we put it in a JPEG file we can’t choose it’s DPI really.
Anyhow, the general idea is great to give most people the pleasure to use your photos for their personal use, and your photos are gorgeous.
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Tesla, let’s take it easy on folks. I’m all for educating my readers, but there’s no need to be so rough.
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@CJPhoto
Are you kidding me? With a moniker like that it’s seriously sad for Raoul to have to actually tell you what the significance of dpi represents in terms of photographs.
I hope you at least have decently high resolution camera, otherwise your photo’s will print out like crap. Raoul’s solution is worth considering since you will still be able to enjoy it (as a wallpaper) but will never get any serious print mileage out of it since it will more realistically print out at only around 4inches or less for any real print application. FYI, many magazine will not even consider accepting digital media unless it is OVER 12megapixels and some will still only accept 16megapixels or more in lieu of negatives. Just because it CAN print out at 20+ inches doesn’t mean it will look good.
A good policy is to Google “dpi” or any other term you aren’t sure about before trying to post “intelligently”. Otherwise you end up just looking like a douche.
PS
Also look up the significance of “72dpi” as that is just a generalization for screen resolution since it’s obviously different for screens with different physical sizes and Dot pitches.
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Thanks for sharing Raoul. I’ve been thinking about how to best protect my images without restricting the sharing of them. I think you’ve hit it on the head.
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CJ, dpi refers to “dots per inch”. To get a quality print, the dpi measurement should be somewhere between 200-300. 72 dpi is all that a computer monitor can display. The measurement on the long side is 1920 pixels, not dpi.
Here’s a quick calculation that will show you what I mean:
– 1920 pixels / 240 dpi = 8 in print
– 1920 pixels / 72 dpi = 26.27 in on screen
In other words, the same 1920 pixel image displays on a much larger area on screen than when you print it, due to the different dpi requirement for printers and displays.
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Why does dpi matter? The photo is still 1920dpi on the long edge. All dpi effects is the “default” printing size.
Or are you saying you resize down to 1920 pixels which at the same print size is the equivalent to 72dpi compared to 240dpi natively.
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Good plan, Raoul! I’ve considered similar choices lately as well. I’m glad that you shared your reasoning and thought process. This should help other photographers make their own best decisions.
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Kudos to you,my friend!! I’m glad you’ve made this decision. One must always protect their artwork. I’m also glad that I can still use them as desktops,for they are gorgeous to look upon. As always,peace and joy to you and Ligia! 🙂
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