Website Protection - Photography

DampCat · 18 Jan 2010 at 16:47

I threw this here rather than HTML etc as it's relevent.

Someone mentioned in the other thread about protecting your work and taking steps to be able to track it should you find it plagiarised.

What are these steps? Meta Tracking was something I saw in there.

I think it would be a useful resource if people could provide the methods behind protecting their work so others can follow safely.

Many thanks

Paul_Canning · 18 Jan 2010 at 17:57

It is possible to stop hotlinking but that doesn't stop people right-clicking and saving the image.

Watermarks are a good idea too.

greedy123 · 18 Jan 2010 at 17:59

Low resolution photos is the best route so they are worthless to anyone wanting to steal them for publication.

peterattheboro · 18 Jan 2010 at 18:03

As per the other thread, the creator didn't want to use low res images or watermark them as it cheapens the image. So meta linking is the way forward. But agreed, it doesn't protect the image really as you can just take a screendump. However, the only true way of protecting yourself without using any of these measures is to produce work that is truly outstanding and instantly recognisable as your own

Easier said than done...

Xenoxide · 18 Jan 2010 at 18:59

Look up Digimarc if you have money to burn. It's quite expensive, but they've been around for years and are quite good.

As an alternative take a look here. It works be very subtly changing your image, encoding some hidden text into it. You wouldn't notice the difference. (I think it's the same way DigiMarc works except that there's none of the cool tracking stuff).

Other than that there is no form of DRM for images.

ScarySquirrel · 18 Jan 2010 at 19:15

I should probably stop uploading full res images with no watermark to Flickr really.

Mr Jones · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:04

ScarySquirrel said:
I should probably stop uploading full res images with no watermark to Flickr really.

I never realised you did! :eek:

Keep it at 800 or 900 px max for normal shots... Good enough for computer viewing but not quite as good for printing.

ScarySquirrel · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:06

I'm too lazy to resize them. It would be ok if I could limit the size that Flickr displayed them at.

syke · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:07

ScarySquirrel said:
I should probably stop uploading full res images with no watermark to Flickr really.

Mr Jones said:
I never realised you did!
Keep it at 800 or 900 px max for normal shots... Good enough for computer viewing but not quite as good for printing.

That's what I do. Depending how I want the photo to look, i upload smaller. If it's a panorama it's normally 600-900px tall, and however wide. Think the most i'd upload is up to 1000-1200px or something.

ScarySquirrel · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:09

I've just changed my settings.

Can someone check this - http://www.flickr.com/photos/scarysquirrel/4282856051/

Does it still allow you to click all sizes?
I want to avoid photos being stolen, but now it seems silly because people can only see them really small. Hey ho! Better safe than sorry I suppose.

syke · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:10

ScarySquirrel said:
I've just changed my settings.

Can someone check this - http://www.flickr.com/photos/scarysquirrel/4282856051/

Does it still allow you to click all sizes?
I want to avoid photos being stolen, but now it seems silly because people can only see them really small. Hey ho! Better safe than sorry I suppose.

Nope it doesn't.

ScarySquirrel · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:11

Cool, thanks Syke.

Mr Jones · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:11

ScarySquirrel said:
I want to avoid photos being stolen, but now it seems silly because people can only see them really small. Hey ho! Better safe than sorry I suppose.

That's a shame though, some of your shots deserve a larger resolution than the default :/

ScarySquirrel · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:12

Mr Jones said:
That's a shame though, some of your shots deserve a larger resolution than the default :/

It's a shame Flickr doesn't let you set a max size to view them at.

syke · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:13

You could just use LightRoom when you export, easy to resize them there, just a matter of checking something when you wanna do fullsize/resized. Could try put in proper Metadata too, i haven't bothered with that yet though.

Edit:

You could allow only the people you mark as 'Contacts' able to view full sizes? Think that's a new option.

ScarySquirrel · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:15

All my stuff goes through PS after LR now though. I could resize, but I like having the full res image stored on Flickr.

I really need to sort out my catalogue of images on my HDD though, it's a mess.

syke · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:17

ScarySquirrel said:
All my stuff goes through PS after LR now though. I could resize, but I like having the full res image stored on Flickr.

I really need to sort out my catalogue of images on my HDD though, it's a mess.

I did that one weekend, sort it all out in LightRoom now, when i import i re-locate it straight away into an organized manner...it's just the saves that end up in one single folder normally, nevermind

Raymond Lin · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:19

I have stopped uploading full res onto FlickR now, its 800p on the long side and my site is Flash based so no right click and if someone wants to screendump then no photo protection will help, even then all my photos on my site have a watermark.

martinturner · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:19

Nick/Colin - can you check that you have access to 'all sizes' please on mine. I have set it so only friends can have access. It should restrict normal contacts too. Been meaning to set mine for a while now.

Mr Jones · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:24

Martin, it's working fine. I'm in a Friend list

Edit: That's actually quite a good idea, using a Friend/Family list as opposed to stopping everyone from looking at higher resolution...