Protecting your photos from theft

[Guest]

Hi,

This is about preventing unfair website owners and photographers
from using your photographs without your permission.

http://www.digital-photography-software.com/archives/6

One of the most effective ways to protect your images is placing a
visible watermark on your photos. The watermark (text or image)
should be made semi-transparent to make it impossible to remove. The
people who will be interested in getting the originals would ask you
first.

In addition (this is also important), your recognizable watermark
would serve as an advertisement of your website or service.

I would definitely recommend the watermarking software recently
reviewed in my blog (see the link above).

Come and read the real-life story about photo protection.

___________
kind regards,
uskis

 

[Michael J. Mahon]

Hi,

This is about preventing unfair website owners and photographers
from using your photographs without your permission.

Yeah, I worry all the time about people using my photos for
their nefarious purposes--that's why I put them on the web. ??!?

I'm sure this is an important problem for someone, but for the
average citizen, if you don't want you photos used, don't put
them on the web or password-protect access to them.

Most people would be delighted if someone thought a photo they
took was good enough to use for something...

-michael

Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it is seriously underused."

 

[Guest]

Well, I partially agree. I mostly address professional photographers here who
make money from selling photos online. There are plenty of them. Watermarks
serve as almost the only way the people know who's this or that photography
author.

There are rare photos, there are web galleries on the web, wedding agencies,
news portals etc. All of them stamp their photos either with their domain
names or their logos.

Many of my friends, the ordinary citizens, put dates on their photos to
remember when and where a photograph was shot. To not to spoil a picture,
they make watermark semi-transparent. You even don't know if it exists at a
first glance, but when looking at it closely you can see the date.

That's the idea.

 

[Michael J. Mahon]

Well, I partially agree. I mostly address professional photographers here who
make money from selling photos online. There are plenty of them. Watermarks
serve as almost the only way the people know who's this or that photography
author.

But there are invisible digital watermarks which are strong enough
to serve as the basis for a legal action if a photo is appropriated
for commercial purposes. A visible watermark is just an invitation
to crop, retouch, or ignore (if it *really* defaces the photo).

And I'd be surprised if many professional photographers hung out on
this newsgroup...

There are rare photos, there are web galleries on the web, wedding agencies,
news portals etc. All of them stamp their photos either with their domain
names or their logos.

Yes, and I view this "stamping" as an abomination, since it prevents
me from using the image for my private, non-commercial purposes. I
skip right past such images in searches.

Generally, stamping seems to be intended as a defacement for the
purpose of advertising, since if you are willing to pay someone, you
get access to an un-altered version, often in higher resolution than the
come-on image on the web. (A bit like turning off ads or enabling
"saves" if you register the trial version of some software.)

So, unless one intends to be in this kind of business, I would maintain
that visible stamping is inappropriate.

If you want to sell an image, OK. But if you want to share it, then
share it. And if you don't want to sell it or share it, don't put
it on the web.

Many of my friends, the ordinary citizens, put dates on their photos to
remember when and where a photograph was shot. To not to spoil a picture,
they make watermark semi-transparent. You even don't know if it exists at a
first glance, but when looking at it closely you can see the date.

That's the idea.

But this latter issue is *much* better addressed by editing the EXIF
data in the .jpg file, rather than something that defaces the picture.
EXIF data can be used to search, sort, and otherwise organize images.

-michael

 

[Guest]

There are pro photographers that check in from time to time, me being one!
As for image security, this is getting harder and harder.

Watermarking was good but it can be edited out with good software, even
javascript found in web pages that disable the right click> Save As; can be
got around with screen capture. Hidden watermarks (Digital) are fine for
proving who owns the image but finding where its being used is costly and
time consuming. One good soloution is to use a low resoloution image so they
don't bother pinching the image in the first place: try saving the image at
jpeg compresion of 5 or less at 72 dpi and adding a watermark or text over
the image too, this will make the efort of retouching out a watermark so hard
and so bad quality its of no use.
Keep the original safe.

 

[Guest]

Hi,

There are pro photographers that check in from time to time, me being one!
As for image security, this is getting harder and harder.

Watermarking was good but it can be edited out with good software

I disagree. A semi-transparent, noisy watermark is very hard to remove.
Disregarding the power of software used. Imagine a "(C)"-sign that occupies
almost half of your photo right in the center. It is even not noticeable from
the first glance. But when you see to it a little bit closer, you find the
sign that descourages you from using the photo without asking an author for
an original one.

________________________
kind regards,
Al Murauski, the owner of Digital Photography Software blog
http://www.digital-photography-software.com