Copyright protection suggestion?

MRudland

Is there a way to save a gif or such over the actual thumb nail or image so that if someone does try to steal an image they get a blank print out or screen print or image? I am finding that people are just simply stealing my images and not purchasing them even a cheap 4X6. They don't care about the copyright mark on them or anything. I'm very frustrated with it.
I'm loosing $$ because of it and my prices are low enough where there should be NO reason for anyone not to be able to afford my stuff.
Michelle

dogwood

In short- no. If you can see it on the computer screen, you can save it. The gif situation you're talking about won't fool anyone-- you can always save a screen shot and paste it into photoshop.

Try watermarking and make the watermarks obnoxious (tiled across your entire image) if it's an event/shoot and you're concerned about people swiping your photos.

jfriend

MRudland wrote:

Is there a way to save a gif or such over the actual thumb nail or image so that if someone does try to steal an image they get a blank print out or screen print or image? I am finding that people are just simply stealing my images and not purchasing them even a cheap 4X6. They don't care about the copyright mark on them or anything. I'm very frustrated with it.
I'm loosing $$ because of it and my prices are low enough where there should be NO reason for anyone not to be able to afford my stuff.
Michelle

Smugmug's right-click protection puts a transparent gif over your images. That prevents right-click copying or drag/drop copying from the browser, but there is no way to prevent screen grabs.

Right-click protection will block casual copiers who aren't that techy. If you want to block anyone else, then you need to use a semi-transparent watermark that spans across the middle of your image in a way that people can still see the image, but a print wouldn't be satisfying. An appropriately done watermark is the only foolproof way to discourage copying of web-sized images.

Andy

jfriend wrote:

If you want to block anyone else, then you need to use a semi-transparent watermark that spans across the middle of your image in a way that people can still see the image, but a print wouldn't be satisfying.