buenos dias muchachalatas

 Do not repost art without permission.

Do no repost art without permission.

“But I like the piece! I want to share it!” GREAT! Then please consider giving the compliment to the artist and asking them if you can repost their work! You’ll probably brighten someone’s day.

“But I don’t know the source!” Okay, well it still belongs to someone?? And unless you’re the creator, you that person is not you. I recommend reverse image searching to try to find the artist! It’s useful! It works! It’s free! Also, We Heart It, Pinterest, and Google are not sources, as a source is where the artist originally posts their work.

“I don’t have the time to ask permission!” Cry me a river. The artist probably invested hours at the very least and days/weeks/months at the most most to create their art they decided to share. If you really like the art, you can show the artist some respect and spend a few minutes to ask permission before you redistribute their property.

“It’s not like I’m claiming it as my own!” Cool! You’re on the right track! But guess what? By reposting someone’s work without permission, you could possibly be taking away from the artist’s income! If they sell prints, you could be causing some serious damage to them. How would you feel if you were at work, completed a task, but didn’t get paid for what you did because your boss didn’t know you were the one who did it?

“But some artists don’t care!” That is correct! But some do. Just ask to be safe.

You sure have seen this post. It has spread like wildfire over the past few days so I doubt there is any artist out there who hasn’t seen it. But even if you didn’t, you should read on because I’m about to tell you a handy little thing that can help you to protect your art from such assholes as the anon who submitted this bullcrap, as well as art thieves in general.

The magic word is Metadata.

Metadata is like an invisible signature that is embeded into a file. It can contain all kinds of information, like Title, date, keywords for online seach engines, and copyright information. And the best thing is, since this information is “hidden” in the code of your picture, it’s hard to remove it.

There is a nice basic tutorial on how to add Metadata, or “additional file information” to your images in photoshop. It’s really, really easy so check it out!

“Adding Your Contact And Copyright Info To Your Photos With Photoshop” on PhotoshopEssentials.com

I’m not sure if you can do the same with any other art program. If you know how to do this in other programs / can confirm that it works the same way there, please tell me so I can add the information to this post.