Problem
You are a photographer, or your client is. You've got some wonderful photos that you want to show in a website, but you don't want anyone to steal them. How can you prevent them from being copied?
Solution
You can't. It's impossible. A number of so-called solutions abound on the web, but none of them works. Even if you use a technique that avoids the image being loaded into the browser cache, screen grabbing software can easily make a copy of any image. However, there are a number of techniques that help protect images.
Detailed explanation
Once an image is displayed on a computer, there are numerous ways of copying it.
One of the most commonly used "protection" techiques is to add a JavaScript function to the page to disable right-clicking in a web page. Even if the script does block right-clicking (and it often fails in many browsers), all that's necessary is to disable JavaScript temporarily in the browser, something that takes only a couple of seconds. It's completely useless.
It's equally useless to try to turn of Print Screen. Screen grabbing software, make light work of taking screenshots of anything on a computer screen. Screen grabs also make it possible to copy images loaded into a Flash movie.
Simply face the fact that if it's displayed on a web page, someone can copy it. However, that doesn't mean there's nothing you can do to protect your work. Consider one of the following options or a combination of them:
Watermark your images
Adding a watermark to an image clearly identifies the ownership of the image, and usually renders it useless for any other purpose. A well-designed watermark still lets visitors to the site see the image, and needn't necessarily destroy the artistic impact. Example of watermarking.
Tutorial on watermarking images with Photoshop.
Embed copyright information in the metadata
Metadata embedded in an image file can be used to identify the owner of the copyright. Use the File Info panel in Adobe Bridge to embed the metadata. Since Dreamweaver CS3, Adobe Bridge is installed automatically with a default installation of Dreamweaver.
Save images at low resolution
Often, when someone steals an image, they want to use it for printing. Photographers are usually keen to use high-resolution images, and store their files at 300 dots per inch (dpi). Create separate versions for the web at 72 dpi. This is the standard resolution used by browsers, but is generally useless for printing.
+
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license, pertaining to the examples of code included within this work are available at Adobe.
