Who need to protect images? Photographers, Artists, Stock photo agencies, Models, Parents, Illustrators, Catalog owners, Adult sites and more.
| Protection method |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
Comments |
| Do not show your images |
nothing lost |
nothing gained |
Unfortunately, studies show that there is a direct link from the quality
of your images on your site to your sales. |
| Reduce size of images* |
You can show preview of your images |
Preview images can be freely copied and used |
Making a small preview is a good idea. Quality of images will be enough for showing on web but will be not enough for printing. |
| Reduce quality of images |
You can show ugly preview of your images |
Preview images can be freely copied and used |
Reducing quality of images is not a good idea. Why put ugly photos on your site? That will not
promote your business in a good light. |
| disable right mouse click in web browser by use javascript * |
You can show original images without remarks. Tells everyone it is not for keeps. |
Will not stop web page saving and making screenshots. Does not work on the Mac. |
Good a way of telling people the images are copyrighted. |
| Adding a transparent gif over the top of your image in a web page. |
You can show original images. Gives the wrong image when saving by right mouse click. |
Does not stop screen capture programs and saving web page. |
How it works: put the real image in the table background
and put the transparent one in the cell over the top. |
| Adding visible watermarks to images * |
You can show original images. Everyone can read your copyright information. Big non trasparent watermarks do not allow restore original images. |
Small watermark can be easily cropped out . Transparent watermark can be repainted (but the work is very difficult). Often people do not
care who owns the image. |
The most popular way to protect images. Use several big transparent watermarks for improving protection quality. |
| Digital watermarking (adding invisible watermarks) |
Hidden, thief will not know it is there. You can prove your copyright. |
Hidden. How do people know it is copyrighted? Nearly impossible to track down after it is gone. |
Finding stolen pictures is dependent on the thief actually posting the image online AND getting that page indexed
at the search engines. |
| Making images into Flash or Shockwave objects |
You can show original image or part of your image as you want. No right click, no drag and drop, no web-page saving. |
Does not protect against screen capture. There is a tools for saving Flash objects. May be not applicable for mobile devices. |
Time consuming way. |
| Making pictures Java Applets |
You can show original image or part of your image as you want. No right click, no drag and drop, no print, no web-page saving. |
Does not stop screen capture programs. May be not applicable for mobile devices. |
Java is not as good as it could be. Slows the web page rendering somewhat. |
