How can you prevent someone snatching Photos from your website?

[Robert Wilde]

Originally Posted by David_Buzzard

I had one of my property management clients have their competitor steal the photos of the units I shot for them, and pass them off as their own. It's never ending. Now I produce a Flash Gallery using a program called Sound Slides, and that has totally solved the problem.

David Buzzard's Technical Blog

Thanks, David. Could you provide an url, where you got this flash gallery.

Currently, I'm mixing text and images, but I'll very likely change that to separate image browsing and reading.

[Robert Wilde]

Originally Posted by Martin_Doudoroff

Why not watermark? (I'm asking this question completely innocently.)

It disturbs the image. And then, if you print your copyright everywhere, it might look like someone is a bit uptight and not giving.

[Robert Wilde]

Originally Posted by Josh_Hawkins

I don't watermark because I feel like it interferes too much with the image. I'd rather have clean good looking image. On the other hand, it's really the only way to put your images on the web and have a decent way to protect them.

Goes back to Ed's perverse dynamic. If you don't show it well, they won't hire you. At least that's my feeling.

That's also my impression. You need to have good images. If someone writes his watermarks all over the images and only shows extreme low resolution print, you end up looking cheesy.

[Robert Wilde]

As things are at the moment, you can't really do much.

Except the flash gallery, that David mentioned, where images are obviously buried in one big file, and harder to extract.

I currently use 500 by 300 resolution, but I saw that my print resolution is very high. I don't know if you can have a low pixel resolution and a high dpi in the same picture.

[Martin_Doudoroff]

Originally Posted by Josh_Hawkins

I don't watermark because I feel like it interferes too much with the image. I'd rather have clean good looking image. On the other hand, it's really the only way to put your images on the web and have a decent way to protect them.

Goes back to Ed's perverse dynamic. If you don't show it well, they won't hire you. At least that's my feeling.

Here's an example of a watermarked image. I don't see how it really interferes with the appreciation or professionalism of the image. The text seems quite "clean" to me. Of course, there's nothing preventing someone from cropping the text out, but the text label forces the perpetrator to make a deliberate, proactive decision to do so.

[Robert Wilde]

I have the impression, that when someone pulls a photo off someone else's website, he doesn't get all, not even all of the already reduced file size.

The file he takes is smaller than the actual photo published.

File size is only 20% of the (already reduced) photo, it can't be used for any kind of printing.

[Josh_Hawkins]

That watermarking certainly isn't bad at all, much better than some of the other examples I've seen out there.

I don't do it for my images, and probably won't start, but as options go, your example Martin is a good compromise.