While walking the streets of San Francisco, it is easy to come across an intricate graffiti mural painted on the side of a building. Vivid colors blend together to make obscure fonts and shapes, all done with a can of spray paint and a lot of attention to detail. Even if you can't make out what it says you still know it is art.

Perhaps more often around the city you see "a tag." A single color scribble on a storefront or the back of a MUNI bus. You probably think to yourself how ugly it is and feel bad for the person who has to wash it off. Steve Rotman, photographer and author of San Francisco Street Art and Bay Area Graffiti, says the latter is actually graffiti in the traditional sense.

"These are examples of legal graffiti murals, which is a little different than graffiti proper," Rotman said, while walking by the murals on the old RAI Care Center building on Haight Street, which were painted with permission from the property owner. "Graffiti in its purest form is an illegal form of expression. I love these, they're great, but it's not, strictly speaking, graffiti."

According to Rotman, only a couple years ago San Francisco was a top destination for seeing illegal but picturesque graffiti murals. However, eliminating graffiti has become a major priority of the SFPD and some city officials. "When I started shooting graffiti it was ubiquitous it the city, it was everywhere. You could go to any neighborhood and see not just tagging, but full color, really fantastic pieces, on the street, on rooftops and on billboards and it made the city a very exciting place to be," Rotman said. "Since then, the city has engaged in a very aggressive and successful, from their point of view, crackdown on graffiti."

In July 2008, Assembly Bill 1767 was signed into law. It created a pilot program in San Francisco that allowed the city to require graffiti offenders to clean up graffiti as part of their community service. Author of the bill, Assemblywomen Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco), claimed graffiti removal was costing the city $20 million annually.

Roman Cesario, the art director of 1:AM Gallery, says graffiti belongs in certain places. "I think graffiti shouldn't be it some places, like on someone's house or a business's window," he said. "But if it's a building that's about to get torn down or something that is already pretty sorry looking then I think any modification is going to benefit what's there."

However, the SFPD's official graffiti motto is "the greatest graffiti is NO graffiti!" SFPD Spokesperson Sgt. Wilfred Williams said a graffiti offender can be convicted of a felony if the property damage exceeds $400.

Cesario says graffiti is no more offensive than advertisements. "When you're driving down the street and that big Whopper billboard is staring at you, you may not like it but since they paid for it they're allowed to be there," he said. "It's all a violation of public space, it's just how you perceive it."