Reader Question: How do I protect my images online?

Protecting photographs (images) of any kind on the internet has and will continue to be a problem for copyright owners, designers and artists. The best way is to put a watermark on the middle of the image this will protect the image and make it extremely difficult to use after being downloaded. View this website for a very good example of watermarking photographs. Most keyboards have the ability to print screen, and most images that have been uploaded to the web are usually 72dpi unless a high-quality image has been uploaded. Make your images approximately 200×150dpi then when they are printed out at a large size the images will be grainy. I hope this advice helps.

I left you my cheapy URL…butttt, if I uploaded either a hi res or low res I didn’t want copied…and you can easily do this with Paint Shop Pro or other paint programs, even windows fax vieweer and ETC’s… capture goodies…I’d put a large picture of my Ex-Mother-in-Law in a vital spot on the picture so it would have to be paid for to get the full image…to heck with water marks. LOL
Travis

The image has already been downloaded to your visitor’s computer by the time they see it ans so if they know where to look for it there is no protection outside the image itself.

Even if they don’t know where to look it is relatively easy to run JavaScript against the page that will disable any JavaScript protection that the page attempts to use or they can just turn JavaScript off.

Of course, you can always disable Right Clicking on an image… that is easy enough… and that will stop 80% of the theft. Remember to disable the shortcut icon for saving pictures too.

True, this will not stop all theft. But many don’t know what to do if those two items are disabled.

Another thing to do is using low res images that are watermarked. And only samples of Hi Def images that aren’t important to you.

Third, you can put them in a flash photo display and then only people with Flash professional can get them. Well, sort of. There are many screen capture programs out there that can grab things. But, if you can knock out 80% to 90% of the theft, then you are ahead of the game.

How about this one:
You sell your photographs and make some much needed profit. A month later you find those images on the internet being circulated. It is a tough business today.

JJ

Watermarking is the best way – especially if you can automate it. We watermark hundreds of designs that have been entered in contests to stop people lifting them from our.

Watermarks can be done programmatically. You can use a package like WebSupergoo (also lets you watermark pdf and eps files) or create something from scratch in asp.net.

A css approach to watermarking you could try (not sure if this would work), if you’re not a programmer, would be to float some transparent div/text over the top of the image. This can be undone but not a bad way to prevent it.

Alec Lynch

Director
DesignBay

Hi the following java script will protect someone from right click/copying your page, if you are using frames put the code into every page. Copy and paste the code into the page header, after your metta tags – please see other comments above; i.e 80% success rate from stealing. The best way to protect images would be to create a flash swf file, however people can still press Print screen and paste it into photoshop etc. the same with a water mark.

The script follows below: (please change “Your copyright message here” and leave everything else as it is.)

function click() {if (event.button==2) {alert(’Cannot right click at this time! \n Your copyright message here);}}document.onmousedown=click// – ->

Hi don’t forget to put the javascript opening and closing tags (the comment page wouldn’t accept the left and right arrows), i.e.

(Left arrow) script (right arrow)

function click() {if (event.button==2) {alert(’Cannot right click at this time! \n Your copyright message here);}}document.onmousedown=click// – ->

(Left arrow) /script (right arrow)

Hi, We are experimenting with layers and put a transparent gif on a layer over the images we are trying to protect. They are watermarked also. So far it does seem to prevent right clicking or dragging off to the desk top. I turned java and javascript off and it stii worked, so maybe this is a good idea?
Bruce
graphic designer trying to do web design

Hi I was wondering if you could tell me how to do this I just have one photo I need to protect.

What I do to protect pictures online is to put watermarks on them. Use of low resolution pictures can discourage visitors from visiting your site.

I’m pretty new at this web design thing but have already found stolen images of my art on several web sites and blogs. Geesh. My site hasn’t even been up for a year yet. I’m just going to let it go. Watermarks are a real turnoff when looking to buy artwork online. Low res images are a turnoff too. If someone is going to pay $1000 for a product they should be able to see it clearly, especially if they cannot view the art in real life before buying it.

I have photos of my art on my web site.

I took my photos over to corel photo draw, put text ‘SAMPLE’ in a light picture-color- related font, (that way it does not distract too much from the picture content).

The ‘SAMPLE’ is over the pic enough to ruin a printed version, but beside the detail, so that the detail is still viewable.

I grouped it all together, and then exported as a jpg, which is then uploaded to my site.

Let me know what you think, as I am still tinkering with the notion of how to copyright protect.

You can’t protect ANY image you put online from being stolen or misrepresented. That is the nature of the internet. If we were all smart we would ban together and gain funding to create a new image format that is outside the mainstream and police them.

An Artist Whom Has Been Through This For Too Long.

r.