Photo (JPEG) Protection from theft ........

bashfotobashfoto Registered Users Posts: 30 Big grins
edited February 25, 2008 in Technique
Hi All,
I was just wondering what does everyone use for protecting there image's beside visible watermark's has anyone figured a way to hide a watermark ? or maybe use some sort of steganography method ? even though it's easy to wipe all IPC (EXIF Data) off now a days do you still bother ? or do people relay on website's like smugmug or flikr to keep your files safe ?

Thanks ,
Martin :thumb

Bashfoto



Comments

  • bhambham Registered Users Posts: 1,303 Major grins
    edited February 20, 2008
    The reason I love smugmug, customized watermarks, where you can set placement and opacity. That alone makes the annual price worth it for me.

    If someone else can't display it without everybody seeing that they obviously either stole it, or are using with permission (because its clearly not theirs) that is pretty good protection.

    Having embedded data is not bad, but if someone just wants to display it on a wall, on a website, etc the embedded data doesn't deter that.
    "A photo is like a hamburger. You can get one from McDonalds for $1, one from Chili's for $5, or one from Ruth's Chris for $15. You usually get what you pay for, but don't expect a Ruth's Chris burger at a McDonalds price, if you want that, go cook it yourself." - me
  • DesignsmithDesignsmith Registered Users Posts: 45 Big grins
    edited February 22, 2008
    Have you taken a look at Digimarc? I have not thoroughly investigated their product yet so have no idea whether it would help you or not. If you do take a look maybe you could post a review. Otherwise I’ll try to get to it when I have some time. I'm sure there is a cost involved.


    http://www.digimarc.com/mypicturemarc/
    DS

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  • LittleLewLittleLew Registered Users Posts: 368 Major grins
    edited February 22, 2008
    Seems to me that the problem with any non-displaying mark is that the thief can simply copy the displayed image and save it to another file.
    New pictures at LewLortonphoto.com
  • nmhnmh Registered Users Posts: 29 Big grins
    edited February 22, 2008
    LittleLew wrote:
    Seems to me that the problem with any non-displaying mark is that the thief can simply copy the displayed image and save it to another file.

    The point of "invisible watermarks" is that they are part of the image data, but subtle enough that people don't normally see them (like jpeg compression). The problem with these is that (afaict) they are fragile and might not survive recompression.
  • bashfotobashfoto Registered Users Posts: 30 Big grins
    edited February 25, 2008
    Thats so true, specially with other protection site which do not allow you to copy the image or save the image you can use an application like snagit copy - paste the image.

    So visible Watermarks would be the best then but placed in the middle ?

    i tried jumping a .txt file in JPEG it works and adds text to the last section of the image which is indepentent of any EXIF information but Saved or recompressed it does remove the text :( so that proof's useless i guess...

    i think it's maybe possible to encrypt text and embedded this into the JPEG would compression or Clear Exif data clear the Encrypted text ? something to be tested.


    LittleLew wrote:
    Seems to me that the problem with any non-displaying mark is that the thief can simply copy the displayed image and save it to another file.

    Bashfoto



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