@Background Pony #A0C7  
What you described is quite a common, as for it being a nuisance well I guess it depends who you’re talking to. I usually sign somewhere in a blank area and upload the whole image because the work is done freely and so should be free. Even if I had something to be a print I’d probably still have a huge res one available for free.
 
I’m can’t really complain about de-marked images. :D

@Woodcase  
Signatures I don’t mind as long as they aren’t blocking anything important (a small one in the corner is fine)
 
But for me the worst is when somebody has one for pictures they plan to make into products to sell at a convention in a country most fans won’t be able to get to and it would be insanely expensive to ship it from there. A few weeks ago I spent an afternoon removing a huge colourful one from a picture set the artist had planned to sell as key chain charms at a convention in China and said that he could only accept orders from there and a few near by countries.
 
I can understand being worried about the option of printing out your own copies of something hurting your sales at the event, but it seems a bit unfair to make the unmarked version only available to people who are able to attend the event and buy one or lives in one of the few countries they ship to. In that case I think they best thing to do would be to post an unmarked version after the event or not post it at all until the event is over
 
Though I suppose if every one picks a few pictures they really like and de-marked them it probably wouldn’t be too hard; many hooves make light work, after all (yes I just took this in the territory of pony puns)

@Background Pony #A0C7  
Yes I know it’s hard to enjoy these pictures with artist’s famous diagonal watermarks, though I have my own reasons concerning this person. Anyway, watermarks I don’t care much about, signatures yes. Removing all the watermarks here would be quite tedious, I’d be pretty damn lazy to do it.

@Woodcase  
Aww, but it’s so hard to enjoy a picture when they have a water mark. Or perhaps I’m just odd in thinking this way but I always thought the most important thing for images is enjoying them, that’s why I never put watermarks on my own pictures; If somebody tries to plagiarise them I’ll take care of it if it happens, but the possibility of that happening isn’t as important as the enjoyment that comes from the unobstructed image.
 
Plus it’s fan art so it’s not the same as creating a story and having some else use the designs for something you find distasteful or copyrighting them and having to go through a court case.

@Background Pony #A0C7  
Nah, that’s worse than the artist adding obtrusive watermarks, I’d probably leave her works be.

Maybe we should have a “watermark removal request” tag for anyone that wants to have a go at editing them out

@Mellow91  
Haha now THAT I can agree to.

@Woodcase  
Yeah, but at least this still isn’t quite like some artwork on the internet that have that big, honking, barely-transparent deviantart logos overtaking the image. Those are the worst!

@Mellow91  
Which is why artists have signatures. I guess this person (who is fairly young, I believe early 20’s) is quite overprotective.

Dashies, pinkies, and Twilights are the best and cutest ones!

@Woodcase  
Watermarks often tend to ruin artwork at the expense of “copyright protection”. I don’t like them, myself. In a way though, they’re a “necessary evil”.

Since the beginning of this artist there’s always been those slapped on watermarks.

Dashie and AJ are the cutest hehe too bad for the weird looking watermarks going on