Stopping people nicking them.

[.Mark]

A guy I work with has taken some great photo's (in my opinion) and he is toying with the idea of making a website.
The only thing stopping him is the fact that people can right click and save them locally which he doesn't want. I know there is a way around this by disabling the option but how does one do it?

[Marshy]

You can disable right click using Javascript, but all the user has to do it turn off Javascript in their browser, et voila, image saved.

There are tricks you can pull with using the photo as a table cell background, with a transparent GIF in the cell itself. Right click->Save As saves the transparent GIF not the background. All someone determined needs to do is view the page source and grab the pics that way though.

I suppose he could do something with a Java applet to display the images somehow, but that's probably not infallible either (i.e. you can probably find the image URLs in the applet witha binary editor of some sort, then grab them as above).

So I'd make the images low res (and possibly scale them up on the page), watermark them (visibly), and use a low JPEG quality factor.

[PetrolTed]

There is no way of stopping it. They can always be captured by doing a screen grab.

Simple answer is to put up lower quality versions and watermark them.

[DustyC]

I dont do it with mine and if I have to (usually on PH) I keep it below 100dpi.

[ehasler]

How do people on here (Ted?) watermark their photos then? Do you simply paste your logo onto each pic in Photoshop or whatever, or is there an easy way to do it?

[PetrolTed]

I use a Photoshop batch job for some.

Most of those on the site with the PH flash across the corner are done programatically when the images are uploaded and resized automatically.

[Mad Dave]

Always export your images at 72dpi - theyre pretty worthless at that res for anything but displaying on the web - and the only use for displaying on the web is to sell them presumably, and theyre not saleable at that res. You can export the images in Macromedia Fireworks quite effectively. Another method i also imploy is this one:

http://bermangraphics.com/tips/table.htm

It works rather well - go here:

www.davidhambly.co.uk/madalon1.htm

Now try and right-click, save picture as - when you print, all youll get is my web address!

[Marshy]

Dave,

Problem is, it's too easy to do this:-


Anyone determined to rip images off the web will do so, and the only way to make it useless to them is to watermark it and make it low quality.

[Mad Dave]

Of course you're correct, but what good is that image to anyone? Its 72dpi and not all that big, so unless they just want it as a desktop wallpaper, its useless. They can't use it for printing in books etc (where the money lies) as they'd need it to be 300dpi for that.

[.Mark]

Good points all - I'll pass them back. Cheers.

When you mention 'watermarks' what do you mean, something visible on the pictures themselves? I do that with mine (although Lord knows why) but as my mate demonstrated today 5 mins with a half decent editing package and it's gone. Or do you mean a hidden one? Not much incentive not to download there is there?

[getcarter]

As has been said, IMHO the most important thing is 72 dpi and no more... then at least it won't get to print.

The other thing I do is be nice... on my site it says "don't use without permission - usually given" At least I get a link and the knowledge it's doing some good somewhere.

Steve

[Mad Dave]

getcarter said:

As has been said, IMHO the most important thing is 72 dpi and no more... then at least it won't get to print. The other thing I do is be nice... on my site it says "don't use without permission - usually given" At least I get a link and the knowledge it's doing some good somewhere. Steve

I like that idea - mine says not to use without permission, but it doesnt make it clear that im likely to grant permission. Top tip that man

[polar_ben]

This is useful as well - turns off the image toolbar in Internet Explorer (eg - hover over Dave's pic above & you are given the option to save/print it).

Whack this in (between your site's < head > tags - remove the spaces I've inserted below)

< meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="no" / >