How to protect your photos?

[WuffRuff]

Wonder what's the best way to protect my photos, esp. if posting them online or on a website.

I see that most people put their watermark at the bottom right corner, or sometimes left corner, but I think this this is rather useless and people can simply crop off the bottom part and very often, it would not damage the entire pic by much.

Also, i have come across photos where you right click and cannot save it... i.e. the photo cannot be downloaded. But I don't know how to do that. Anyone knows?

 

[ilario]

I think ultimately people still can PRINT SCREEN and make screenshots, still can take the photo lol. Best way is to put a very very faint logo or watermark right in the center? or adjust accordingly to the photo If its really faint enough it shouldnt do much to the pic. People will still know whos photo it belongs to unless they destroy the main subject of the photo.

 

[alfredlau]

I don't bother protecting my photos because I know no matter what you do, either you spoil your photo or they WILL be able to steal it.

If they steal, then fine. I will make a better one, and they can go to hell.

 

[calebk]

If you find out about it, and you can prove you have the original (though I don't know how you do this. Maybe someone can give pointers on this), then they're screwed.

 

[Yatlapball]

No amount of watermarking or work is going to stop the determined leech... The only way is to not post anything online

calebk: having the original RAW is one way, since it is the digital equivalent of the negative. If one shoots JPGs, then make sure you only upload small resized versions...

For me, the watermark is not so much to protect the image, just a "hey, it's me that made it." I also strip all EXIF and downsize the image for web-viewing only.

Some might advocate keeping the EXIF intact along with the IPTC information, so that it will not become an "orphan work".

 

[kiwi2]

Hi WuffRuff,

I've thought about this before. But like it was mentioned, the best way to ensure your photos won't be leeched is to not post at all. Not being sarcastic here as I practice this myself!

I will post only when I feel I want to share the beauty of the photos with others. If they want to download, go ahead. Maybe it might inspire them to take better pics. Actually it's better cos they are in a way advertising your works!

But if they want to do anything funny, like claim or sell the photos, forget it. Cos the quality will never be as good as my original. The only question is, how you can catch such "crooks". The internet is such a huge community. There are companies out there who do photo-tracking for you, but you must pay fees. Not worth it for amateurs.

As for putting the transparent looking water mark across the pic, I think forget it. It not only spoils the photo (how to appreciate it then?) but it's saying, I'm Paranoid someone's going to steal it! Best is not post at all if you feel it is too precious.

 

[pianodancer]

I also advocate putting the photographer's contact information (name, URL, email, etc.) on the photo so that if someone likes the photos, he knows who is the author.

I download lots of photos online, not for leeching but for reference purposes. Over time, when I look back at my collection, I ask myself: who did this? And if there is no watermark of the photographer or his URL or email, there is no way for me to know, which is a pity.

 

[Yew Fai]

I also advocate putting the photographer's contact information (name, URL, email, etc.) on the photo so that if someone likes the photos, he knows who is the author.

I download lots of photos online, not for leeching but for reference purposes. Over time, when I look back at my collection, I ask myself: who did this? And if there is no watermark of the photographer or his URL or email, there is no way for me to know, which is a pity.

i tend to agree with pianodancer. we often come across nice or interesting photos which we download to appreciate it or perhaps set as our wallpaper. i think others wont mind if we do not use it for commercial purposes or crooked purposes like claiming ownership of the photo to boost your own portfolio.

watermarks that can deter leeching will most likely damage the beauty of the photo, so most ppl use watermarks not to deter others but as a form of signature, and to raise the awareness of others about their works. so long as you do not upload the original-size photo, you can always claim the right to your own photo if you come to know that your photos are being 'stolen' or abused by others.

otherwise, most good things are meant to be shared. and those who are on the receiving end shouldnt abuse others' trust. imagine if we can use our eyes to mark out an object and claim ownership over it, then the whole world would be too busy fighting copyright infringements than to share, and the term sharing would become obsolete in no time.

 

[pisces25]

Do a search on the web...

There are software where they encrypt the picture, something like that ....so even if you can download but you'll not be able to view it.

;p

 

[WuffRuff]

downsize the image for web-viewing only.

Thanks everyone for their views and recommendations.

Any recommendations on what size would be ideal for web-viewing (without visible loss of image quality) and yet too small to be used/ printed as good quality?

 

[calebk]

Thanks everyone for their views and recommendations.

Any recommendations on what size would be ideal for web-viewing (without visible loss of image quality) and yet too small to be used/ printed as good quality?

This is tough. Usually small sized photos can be used for small prints, but as a general guideline, I use the Save For Web feature in Photoshop, set quality to Very High, with no blurring, saving the ICC profile.

What this does is give you a pretty good image for web use, but it throws away the EXIF data (as far as I've checked). This allows you to prove you have the original (that has EXIF intact), while still displaying your work with minimal quality loss.

 

[Yatlapball]

personally I use 450 x 300 most of the time.

once you start pushing >1000+ pixels, in a pinch, the person who steals your photos with intention to print sizes starting from 4R onwards can start doing so with not much problems...

Since screen sizes and resolutions are only that much... 800pixels on the long side would be more than sufficient if you're talking about displaying on the screen.

 

[jasonwithcanon]

To prevent others to save a copy by right clicking is done by javascript inside the page itself.go google for the javascript snippets.

regards,
jasonwithcanon.

 

[stougard]

Wonder what's the best way to protect my photos, esp. if posting them online or on a website.

Against what do you want to protect your photo ? Are you scared that a Miss Ying, 16 years old, use your piece of art to put on her blog ? let's be serious, there is no matter that kiddies use your photo to illustrate their blogs, there is no chance neither they do it as you're not famous, your photos have nothing more than the 10,000,000,000 other ones we can find from Internet for free and anyway, everybody has a digital camera today and don't need to steel anybody to have some good photographs.

Are you scared that some may use your photos to make money ? let's be serious, even if you're good enough for that, nobody will take a so stupid risk. The law is the law, even if you put your photographs free of download, high def on your web site (as I do), that does not mean people can use them as they want. You're the owner of your work, if you just notice anybody use your work without your consent, whatever the way they got it, you are sure to win if you sue them.

I still remember the time, 15 years ago, when Internet was not wasted by this kind of consideration, it was a good time where money and copyright had not reached yet this piece of freedom. Where people write documentation, put their photo for free download and everybody considered that knowledge were done to be shared for FREE. Your question and this kind of consideration is a pain in the ass, what ever protection you use, it'll be useless, it'll bug people who may come to see your work (I never watch photo with watermark, I think it's stupid, ugly and VERY arrogant).

 

[dwaynefoong]

To prevent others to save a copy by right clicking is done by javascript inside the page itself.go google for the javascript snippets.

regards,
jasonwithcanon.

nah, people still can save the pic with disable right click javascript.

Wonder what's the best way to protect my photos, esp. if posting them online or on a website.

I see that most people put their watermark at the bottom right corner, or sometimes left corner, but I think this this is rather useless and people can simply crop off the bottom part and very often, it would not damage the entire pic by much.

Also, i have come across photos where you right click and cannot save it... i.e. the photo cannot be downloaded. But I don't know how to do that. Anyone knows?

best way to protect is to not post on the internet. anything on the internet can and will be leeched :devil:

put a watermark there, let ppl know who took it. take it as advertisement channel :angel:

 

[Youhong]

I download lots of photos online, not for leeching but for reference purposes. Over time, when I look back at my collection, I ask myself: who did this? And if there is no watermark of the photographer or his URL or email, there is no way for me to know, which is a pity.

I agree, sometimes I see really inspiring shots, but there's no source of who the photographer(s) is/are....

 

[weixing]

Hi,
You can consider using steganography, a method for hiding information inside some other object, such as a jpeg file. The below are some program that do this (last one are for linux os only):
OutGuess: http://www.outguess.org/
Steghide: http://steghide.sourceforge.net/index.php
Stegotools: http://sourceforge.net/projects/stegotools

I test on the Steghide... It use command line, but it's work and quite fun... Anyway, I think the embedded information will be lost if they do some processing/edit on the image.

Have a nice day.

 

[calebk]

Against what do you want to protect your photo ? Are you scared that a Miss Ying, 16 years old, use your piece of art to put on her blog ? let's be serious, there is no matter that kiddies use your photo to illustrate their blogs, there is no chance neither they do it as you're not famous, your photos have nothing more than the 10,000,000,000 other ones we can find from Internet for free and anyway, everybody has a digital camera today and don't need to steel anybody to have some good photographs.

Are you scared that some may use your photos to make money ? let's be serious, even if you're good enough for that, nobody will take a so stupid risk. The law is the law, even if you put your photographs free of download, high def on your web site (as I do), that does not mean people can use them as they want. You're the owner of your work, if you just notice anybody use your work without your consent, whatever the way they got it, you are sure to win if you sue them.

I still remember the time, 15 years ago, when Internet was not wasted by this kind of consideration, it was a good time where money and copyright had not reached yet this piece of freedom. Where people write documentation, put their photo for free download and everybody considered that knowledge were done to be shared for FREE. Your question and this kind of consideration is a pain in the ass, what ever protection you use, it'll be useless, it'll bug people who may come to see your work (I never watch photo with watermark, I think it's stupid, ugly and VERY arrogant).

The photographer has every right to be proud of his/her work, and display his or her name in the form of a watermark, however and wherever he/she chooses in the photo. Your post stinks of hypocrisy - scorning the TS for asking a valid question that is the concern of many photographers who are in the photobiz, and scorning that such practices of protection are arrogant.

If you find that this matter does not concern you, there is no need to dilute the discussion with your arrogant talk. To me, this is a very real and true thing - with the convenience of the internet, plagiarism becomes so easy. I don't think it is as easy as snapping your fingers to find out who took your work and displayed it as their own right?

 

[night86mare]

Against what do you want to protect your photo ? Are you scared that a Miss Ying, 16 years old, use your piece of art to put on her blog ? let's be serious, there is no matter that kiddies use your photo to illustrate their blogs, there is no chance neither they do it as you're not famous, your photos have nothing more than the 10,000,000,000 other ones we can find from Internet for free and anyway, everybody has a digital camera today and don't need to steel anybody to have some good photographs.

Are you scared that some may use your photos to make money ? let's be serious, even if you're good enough for that, nobody will take a so stupid risk. The law is the law, even if you put your photographs free of download, high def on your web site (as I do), that does not mean people can use them as they want. You're the owner of your work, if you just notice anybody use your work without your consent, whatever the way they got it, you are sure to win if you sue them.

I still remember the time, 15 years ago, when Internet was not wasted by this kind of consideration, it was a good time where money and copyright had not reached yet this piece of freedom. Where people write documentation, put their photo for free download and everybody considered that knowledge were done to be shared for FREE. Your question and this kind of consideration is a pain in the ass, what ever protection you use, it'll be useless, it'll bug people who may come to see your work (I never watch photo with watermark, I think it's stupid, ugly and VERY arrogant).

you make valid points, but the truth is, everyone and anyone has the right to demand that his property remains his own.

on another note, i would like to raise a point that has been raised before, but has disgusted me - some other forums in singapore (e.g. hwz) like leeching photos from p&p here, not to make money, but to discuss the model's attributes, to discuss their lust for her, etc. i saw quite a number of shots being posted in a thread titled "hot girls for you to pcc" or something to that extent. what do the people here think of that? do they even know that their photos are being koped by others (definitely not them posting it, this guy has been posting photos with different watermarks, like yilishengxian's photos and some other people's) for such purposes? if they do, would they endorse it, and what action would they take? :dunno:

i don't do model photogrpahy, but i'm sure if this happened to my photos, which is not impossible, let's say i take a photo of a child, an innocent one and i find out to my disgust that some idiot has leeched it to post on a paedophilic website.. i would certainly be outraged, since this was not my intent in the very first place, and it might be interpreted that i had such an intent.

 

[AverRal]

personally I use 450 x 300 most of the time.

I think the 450 x 300 works quite well

But still it compromises the full beauty of the photographer works.

We don't really have a solution to this do we?