Photo Security

BobT

An acquaintance asked if he could copy one of my photos http://www.bobtrlin.com/Flora/Bush-Flora-of-Ku-ring-gai/LESSER-MONOCOTYLEDONS/9424051_5QdgVM#!i=715813489&k=63PM5&lb=1&s=A for his blog. I agreed but said that I would have to send him a link because the photo was protected. He claimed it wasn't necessary, he just opened the photo, right clicked and copped it. It's a protected gallery so this shouldn't be possible. I tried it myself and couldn't do it. So why was he able to do it? Any ideas?

jfriend

Right-click protection is, at best, a mild deterrent to copying. It can be bypassed in seconds by someone who knows how. Besides that, anyone can always take a screenshot of your images too.

Anything that displays in a browser can be copied by anyone. Right-click protection is only a small obstacle in the way of copying.

Better protection can be implemented by limiting the max size that can be displayed to visitors and putting a tasteful semi-transparent watermark on your images.

BobT

jfriend wrote: »

Right-click protection is, at best, a mild deterrent to copying. It can be bypassed in seconds by someone who knows how. Besides that, anyone can always take a screenshot of your images too.

Anything that displays in a browser can be copied by anyone. Right-click protection is only a small obstacle in the way of copying.

Better protection can be implemented by limiting the max size that can be displayed to visitors and putting a tasteful semi-transparent watermark on your images.

The point is, he claimed he could copy it by simply right clicking. He didn't mention anything about using special software. I'm wondering if maybe I have a setting somewhere that invalidates the right-click protection.

It must be disappointing for the pros not to have better protection. I used to use a large semi-transparent watermark but thought it a turn-off so now I use a small one in the bottom left-hand corner and take my chances. Copying off the screen I don't see as an issue because of the low resolution.

paulbrock

yep, the setting is "turn off javascript" I think, common in most browsers. do this and you can right click and save to... very easily.

Andy

BobT wrote: »

The point is, he claimed he could copy it by simply right clicking. He didn't mention anything about using special software. I'm wondering if maybe I have a setting somewhere that invalidates the right-click protection.

It must be disappointing for the pros not to have better protection. I used to use a large semi-transparent watermark but thought it a turn-off so now I use a small one in the bottom left-hand corner and take my chances. Copying off the screen I don't see as an issue because of the low resolution.

Hi Bob, he probably thought he got the file, but instead he gets spacer.gif (a one pixel graphic of ours). SmugMug has the most protection you can have with photos on the internet: Blocking of sizes down to medium, custom watermarks, blocking external links, blocking sharing. All of these are configurable by you. If you have any questions about any of them, happy to help!

Andy

paulbrock wrote: »

yep, the setting is "turn off javascript" I think, common in most browsers. do this and you can right click and save to... very easily.

And if you do this you still get the 1px spacer.gif file not the image.

jfriend

BobT wrote: »

Copying off the screen I don't see as an issue because of the low resolution.

If right click copy were to work, it gets the same low resolution image displayed on screen and the same resolution image that a screen capture gets. While browsers cannot be protected from copying, they only offer what's on screen, not your high res images (as long as you have your galleries configured not to display the high res images).

BobT

paulbrock wrote: »

yep, the setting is "turn off javascript" I think, common in most browsers. do this and you can right click and save to... very easily.

So it's that easy!

BobT

Andy wrote: »

Hi Bob, he probably thought he got the file, but instead he gets spacer.gif (a one pixel graphic of ours). SmugMug has the most protection you can have with photos on the internet: Blocking of sizes down to medium, custom watermarks, blocking external links, blocking sharing. All of these are configurable by you. If you have any questions about any of them, happy to help!

Done as you suggest.

jfriend

BobT wrote: »

So it's that easy!

No it's not as easy as turning off javascript. If you turn off javascript, you won't get the alert about copying, but you won't get a copy of the image either. You might think you have a copy of the image, but if you look at what you copied, you'll find it's a blank gif image that's 1x1 pixel size. Right-click copy does not deliver a copy of the image even when javascript is turned off.

That said, I've said many times that right-click protection is only a mild deterrent at best. Anyone who knows there way around the web or a web brower can get a copy of any image that is being display in seconds. Heck, if you want to, you can just do a screen copy. This will only be a copy of the resolution that was displayed on screen and, if you have watermarks turned on, it will still include the watermark. This is just life on the internet. If you want to show it to people, they can copy it. It's that simple.

Use a tasteful semi-transparent watermark, set the max display size, turn on right-click protection (if you want) and you have the maximum amount of protection that can be done in a web browser. Just know that any size that can be displayed in the browser can be taken by anyone. That's just how the web works.

JayP

Andy wrote: »

Hi Bob, he probably thought he got the file, but instead he gets spacer.gif (a one pixel graphic of ours). SmugMug has the most protection you can have with photos on the internet: Blocking of sizes down to medium, custom watermarks, blocking external links, blocking sharing. All of these are configurable by you. If you have any questions about any of them, happy to help!

Hi Andy,

A quick (I hope!) question - I am using a custom watermark and it loads in the center of the image. Is there a way to get it to the right lower edge?? I go into the Control Panel, select Edit Watermarks, then selected Bottom Left for the Placement, but it does not move. Thanks

Allen

JayP wrote: »

Hi Andy,

A quick (I hope!) question - I am using a custom watermark and it loads in the center of the image. Is there a way to get it to the right lower edge?? I go into the Control Panel, select Edit Watermarks, then selected Bottom Left for the Placement, but it does not move. Thanks

Is your watermark only the text/image part? Maybe it has a lot of blank area and needs cropping.

rainforest1155

JayP wrote: »

Hi Andy,

A quick (I hope!) question - I am using a custom watermark and it loads in the center of the image. Is there a way to get it to the right lower edge?? I go into the Control Panel, select Edit Watermarks, then selected Bottom Left for the Placement, but it does not move. Thanks

Right now in the control panel > pros tab > watermark section, you have the watermark set to "center". Note that if you change the setting, it won't have any effect on existing watermarked photos.
You'll see the change when you apply the watermark again via the Tools button > many photos > more > watermarking tool or upload new photos.

Note that your watermark has a some transparent border around the text and that means you'll only be able to get the text as close to the sides as the border around your text allows for on the watermark. If that's not getting it close enough to the sides, you could consider redesigning your watermark to have it closer to the bottom right corner in your watermarking image.

JayP

rainforest1155 wrote: »

Right now in the control panel > pros tab > watermark section, you have the watermark set to "center". Note that if you change the setting, it won't have any effect on existing watermarked photos.
You'll see the change when you apply the watermark again via the Tools button > many photos > more > watermarking tool or upload new photos.

Note that your watermark has a some transparent border around the text and that means you'll only be able to get the text as close to the sides as the border around your text allows for on the watermark. If that's not getting it close enough to the sides, you could consider redesigning your watermark to have it closer to the bottom right corner in your watermarking image.

I realize the settings are there - that is what I was referring to as even if I change those it barely moves. So...the image is a png I created in Fireworks. The image is larger than the text so I am not sure what changes you are suggesting? Thanks.

JayP

JayP wrote: »

I realize the settings are there - that is what I was referring to as even if I change those it barely moves. So...the image is a png I created in Fireworks. The image is larger than the text so I am not sure what changes you are suggesting? Thanks.

I re-did the file and now I can reposition it. Thanks.

rainforest1155

Glad to hear that, Jay!

JayP

rainforest1155 wrote: »

Glad to hear that, Jay!

So last night I applied it to several galleries by selecting the in the tools menu but only the first gallery chosen has it. Not sure why.

rainforest1155

JayP wrote: »

So last night I applied it to several galleries by selecting the in the tools menu but only the first gallery chosen has it. Not sure why.

To change watermarks of existing photos in a gallery, you'll need to use the Tools button > many photos > more > watermarking tool in a gallery.
There's no bulk tool to update the watermarks on existing photos in more than one gallery at a time. Sorry.

JayP

rainforest1155 wrote: »

To change watermarks of existing photos in a gallery, you'll need to use the Tools button > many photos > more > watermarking tool in a gallery.
There's no bulk tool to update the watermarks on existing photos in more than one gallery at a time. Sorry.

OK. What I tried to do was I removed the existing one and then tried applying the new one to all. I will do it this way.

rainforest1155

JayP wrote: »

OK. What I tried to do was I removed the existing one and then tried applying the new one to all. I will do it this way.

Jay, there's no need to remove the existing watermark. With the watermarking tool, you can directly apply any watermark to photos in a gallery to have the photos updated with the watermark you selected.

JayP

rainforest1155 wrote: »

Jay, there's no need to remove the existing watermark. With the watermarking tool, you can directly apply any watermark to photos in a gallery to have the photos updated with the watermark you selected.

That helps - thanks.