I am photographer, how do i protect my photos?

Question

Im going to put these online. but i have to protect it from from those who are trying to get photos and claim it as their property.

Answer 1

Put them up with low resolution and in relatively small format. You can also superimpose a watermark.

Otherwise, it's a jungle out there. On the other hand, if someone uses your photo without your permission, it may be annoying but how much money will you have lost?

Answer 2

Try getting a watermark put on them via editing or something...might help.

You could see if there is an option to disable right-click....

Answer 3

Always be sure to use the lowest resolution possible, in addition to embedding a watermark.

One last little tip. The government has finally come to the conclusion that if you have the original, ( meaning the neg ) then the image is indeed yours. Brilliant right? Anyway, in referrence to that, be sure to add a copyright warning to each page of your posting; i.e. - "All Rights Reserved  Soandso Photo   Copyright 2001-2008". And be sure to keep the dates current.

You could also add a disclaimer somewhere stating, "All images on this, and following pages are copyrighted, watermarked, and displayed in low resolution. Please do not copy without expressed, written permission of the photographer".

You could also do the "poor man's copyright" in which you send a disk containing the images, along with a letter to yourself stating the images are yours, to yourself, and don't open it; but I think it's gotten to the point where it isn't necessary anymore.

Answer 4

There is a good article on it on DPP magazine

http://www.digitalphotopro.com/tech/prot...

and here is a good page for links  on it

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/copyrig...

Copyright does not have to be registered but if you register it you have an easier time if it goes to court. The copyright symbol is not required but again it helps give you some protection. Insert copyright information in the metafile data ( be aware some programs strip the metafile data away when you use a "save for web" option so use "save as" ) and as said here put lower resolution copies on the web. All of these help but none is absolute. Someone may still try to steal your work and depending on what they do they may try to claim it is exempt under the fair use statutes in the copyright law.

If you want to read a very controversial case about this google The Case Of Lane Hartwell And The Richter Scales

Answer 5

There are a number of ways you can easily protect your photos from people who want to steal them. However, if they manage to steal them, you can watermark them, so in the event they steal them, your name will be on it, and they'll have to go through the trouble of editing it out, which i guess some would be willing to do. to watermark your images, just upload your photos to http://www.picnik.com and upload your photos there. You can use the ' abc ' mode, and write on them

they'll end up looking like this picture of mine:

http://flickr.com/photos/27145979@N02/27...

this is also a nice site to use as an alternative to photoshop, which is a little expensive, but picnik is free, and that's something to love isn't it? However, you have to enable them from copy and pasting, or saving your picture to their computers, How, i'm not sure, but i know it's possible to do. I've seen it done before.

if you put them on a small format, your punishing yourself in the fact you can't see them in a regular format, which doesn't make much sense, and you couldn't put a small picture on the internet, it couldn't be appreciated in it's entirety

Answer 6

if you are doing it through a web service, like flickr, you could watermark them or just keep them at a relativity low resolution.

if you are adding them to a personal website, there are javascript snippets that prevent users from right clicking, but these can be bypassed easily.  an excellent solution is to put your photos in a flash gallery (there are numerous free ones online).  that way, they are not stored in an image format, instead a .swf file, which will help protect them (to an extent).  

the best thing you can do is never post a high resolution photograph online.