With countless images circulating online, tracking down their original photographer or artist isn’t always easy. It requires specific approaches and, sometimes, taking assistance from technology. So, if you’ve struggled to identify a picture’s source all on your own, this blog post will prove really effective for you.
In this guide, we’ll discuss multiple ways of identifying the artist or photographer of any image. To improve the accessibility of this discussion, we’ll approach this entire topic from a non-technical angle. So, whether you have any prior experience with tech or not, it doesn’t really matter.
Now, with that in mind, let’s begin. Shall we?
Technique # 1: Inspect Signatures or Watermarks
Famous photographers and artists like Annie Leibovitz and Peter Lik often use signatures or watermarks to protect their creations from unauthorized use. Therefore, the best way to find any picture’s valid owner is to look for watermarks or signatures.
To do so, analyze your photo thoroughly and look for visual cues that facilitate the identification of the actual owner. If so, that’s perfect! But if that’s not the case, do not worry; we have various solutions for your needs here.
Technique # 2: Explore Metadata
Sometimes, artists and photographers rely on enhanced security measures. Rather than following the convention of signatures or watermarks, they put all the essential details in the metadata while uploading an image over the web. For this reason, the following strategy you should try is to explore the image’s metadata. But how?
Well, this procedure generally varies from system to system. For instance, if you use a Windows-based laptop or desktop, you can head to the properties and find all the essential information there. But if you use a smartphone or a macOS-based system, you’ll have to use a third-party metadata viewer.
Technique # 3: Conduct a Reverse Image Search
A strategy that has proven to be the most effective and easiest in recent times is conducting a reverse image search on your photo. It relies on technology-based analyses to find visual cues first. The technique further uses the findings from its analyses to extract all the similar visually matching results from the web, along with the following details:
- Licensing information.
- Metadata.
By performing an image search, you can get all the exact matches for your picture. You can use these results to learn about your image’s original artist or photographer. Even if, for some reason, you can’t find the metadata using the previous method, this strategy will still prove handy.
Technique # 4: Take Help From Art and Photography Communities
The last effective resort is to take assistance from fellow netizens. Fortunately, the internet is a whole of communities and specialized forums where you can get help for any query. And identifying the photographer or artist of a particular picture is one of those questions.
So, post your photo in Reddit communities, such as the following:
- r/ArtCrit.
- r/Painting.
- r/Photography.
You’ll find an appropriate answer here depending on the community’s activity. Similarly, you can upload your image to art or photography-related forums, like DeviantArt or Photocrowd, and discover its owner information.
Some Additional Handy Ways to Find the Artist of a Particular Photo
While the strategies mentioned above bring fruitful results in most cases, if, for some reason, they don’t, you can also try the following approaches:
- Ask the publisher or source where you found the picture in the first place.
- Take assistance from copyright office databases.
- Use the support of a forensic expert or art historian.
Key Takeaways:
Identifying the photographer or artist of an image may feel like solving a mystery at first, but with the right approach, you can accomplish this task effectively. To wrap up everything discussed here, you can take assistance from reverse image search, metadata readers, or connecting with online communities. This way, you can successfully trace the creator and give proper credit. But if you can’t find them helpful, check out the other techniques discussed in the above blog post. Hence, the next time you encounter a captivating image, take a moment to uncover its story because we assure you it’s worth the effort!
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