Website Protection - Photography

martinturner · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:35

Mr Jones said:
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...

Thanks. I keep my best contacts as 'friends' so I can just view friends photos which I would generally comment on. Anyone marked as a 'contact' will get sporadic viewing/comments and an occasional upgrade to friend over a period of time. I promote/demote every few months. Means it does not take over and I can manage who's on the lists as you can choose to show just 'contacts' or just 'friends'; simples!

ScarySquirrel · 18 Jan 2010 at 20:37

martinturner said:
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.

Yeah, working fine here dude

martinturner · 18 Jan 2010 at 22:19

Cheers fella!

ScarySquirrel · 18 Jan 2010 at 22:23

Martin, I really need to bend your ear about landscape photography one day. I really really love your work! I always struggle getting a decent, balanced exposure, and the few landscape shots I've done have relied quite heavily on post processing!

syke · 18 Jan 2010 at 22:46

ScarySquirrel said:
Martin, I really need to bend your ear about landscape photography one day. I really really love your work! I always struggle getting a decent, balanced exposure, and the few landscape shots I've done have relied quite heavily on post processing!

Aye same here, need to work a lot more on portraits too

D.P. · 19 Jan 2010 at 08:11

DampCat said:
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

Simply only upload 1024x768 size of images, these have no commercial value.

Your work is automatically copyrighted to you, so you don't have to do anything to protect your work.

One important thing is to keep hold of the RAW files, as these serve as very convincing evidence that you are the original photographer since they are difficult to fake.

martinturner · 19 Jan 2010 at 08:13

ScarySquirrel said:
Martin, I really need to bend your ear about landscape photography one day. I really really love your work! I always struggle getting a decent, balanced exposure, and the few landscape shots I've done have relied quite heavily on post processing!

Thanks matey. How about a day out somewhere in a couple of months (I am actually fully booked for Jan/Feb, my wife believes in using a calendar

).

D.P. · 19 Jan 2010 at 08:14

peterattheboro said:
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...

Watermarking I agree, looks horrible. But a low res upload is fine - I don't mean a 400px wide image, but a screen sized image so something 1000px wide or so to fill a screen. That kind of resolution is great for online viewing but has no commercial value. No need to upload the 12MP original.

The other thing to consider is, do you think all your photos have a high commercial value which people would exploit? I you think your photos have a commercial value then sell them through an external company, they will take care of all the work and protect your images. A large stock agency has a very large legal team to get your stolen images taken off line and arrange financial prosecution.

As said above, you can't stop people taking a screen shot and if you only upload your photos at resolutions for on-screen viewing anyway then there is nothing else to really do.

You can watermark an image, and the thief will just remove the watermark. IF you don't have the means for a good lawyer then even if you use one of these secret digital watermarking tools there is nothing you can do. You are in no stronger position than if you just politely asked the thief to remove the image and pay compensation. You need a legal team to represent you if you want protection. This is the appeal of using an external stock photo agency or other commercial website to look after you work for retail.

MikeHunt79 · 19 Jan 2010 at 09:01

I've always wondered if there was a similar method of protecting people putting their music online. What's to stop someone ripping it off? Unless there is some sort of watermarking for sound/music files...