Image protection

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by altis

This is effective against peeps that can't read Javascript
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/altisuk/gokyo/index.htm

dont know what you mean i can copy images from your site just with a right click, and save image?!

[Bifta]

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

dont know what you mean i can copy images from your site just with a right click, and save image?!

Click on one of the thumbnailed pictures then try and save the one that pops up, it won't do it, it'll only save a small useless gif.

[Matth]

Falls foul of my firewall/active content blocker = blank page - I really HATE sites that rely on script and other stuff being enabled.

Methods of protecting images.
1. Watermark (light) ... can often be filtered/removed
2. Watermark/stamp (heavy) ... needs to be irritating to be effective
3. Rightclick blocking ... easily defeated
4. Dicing ... quite a useful technique, as it makes SAVE difficult
5. Overlay DIV, with a transparent GIF (catches out careless savers)

If you can see it, though, you can screengrab it!

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by altis

This is effective against peeps that can't read Javascript
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/altisuk/gokyo/index.htm

That's very clever, and will deter the casual image grabbers. Another method I've seen loads a section of the image, together with the other sections - but they are separate images....not sure how you make sure they appear correctly though.

[zoombini]

Hmm, does Incog want to prevent people ripping off her awards?
lol

Originally Posted by zoombini

Hmm, does Incog want to prevent people ripping off her awards?
lol

No I was just really interested in the subject.Mind Matth's last explanation went over my head a little.Could you explain it for novices please?


Incog.

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by Matth

Falls foul of my firewall/active content blocker = blank page - I really HATE sites that rely on script and other stuff being enabled.

Methods of protecting images.
1. Watermark (light) ... can often be filtered/removed
2. Watermark/stamp (heavy) ... needs to be irritating to be effective
3. Rightclick blocking ... easily defeated
4. Dicing ... quite a useful technique, as it makes SAVE difficult
5. Overlay DIV, with a transparent GIF (catches out careless savers)

If you can see it, though, you can screengrab it!

For you incog....

1. watermarks can be removed, as described previously, using programs such as photoshop.
2. heavy watermarks will interfere with the image too much to be worth it.
3. rightclick blocking can be defeated quite easily so not too much point in doing it, someone who is determined will still get the images.
4. dicing, dividing the picture up into pieces and then hosting all of the pieces next to each other, so it appears as if it is 1 image, but if someone tries to save the image they will have to do it for each section, and then reassemble them again.
5. Overlaying is putting a transparent site on top of the image you want to protect; then if someone tries to highlight it or right click and save, it will save the transparent image instead.

hope that helps

MB

Thank you.

So if one spent a long time over the dicing method you could deter all but the most dedicated?

Though I guess screengrab would work but would the resulting images be much good?

Incog.

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by Incognitas

Thank you.

So if one spent a long time over the dicing method you could deter all but the most dedicated?

Though I guess screengrab would work but would the resulting images be much good?

Incog.

personally, i think all of the methods mentioned will deter all except the most dedicated, so it is upto you which you want to use. Watermarking will mess up your images, but on the other hand, dicing will take a long time to do.

IMO disabling the right click is the best option, because you just have to copy the javascript from somewhere are paste it into the source code. If you use something like Dreamweaver then you can make a template which has the script and any other standard features of each page in automatically.

as for the quality of the screenshot... attached is one that i took while i was typing this, cropped to focus on the smilies section.... saved as a bmp, but the quality is still reasonable.

MB

[altis]

A screen-grab will have perfect image quality. All the user will need to do is crop it accurately and then compress it to a jpg, png or gif as appropriate and they will have a file as good as your original. If you can display it then there is always a way to save it.

This is why I didn't bother to hard to protect my images. Instead, I concentrated on deceiving any mischevious user into thinking they have the image when, in fact, they haven't. I use something like the overlaying technique described by Matth. Unless there is a package that can do this for you, I imagine that dicing will take a long time.

One other way I have noticed, is to convert the image into a Flash movie. These cannot be saved using a right-click but again they can be screen-grabbed.

yet again thank you for the info.
I've learnt a lot from such a simple question though I'm not sure I can be a*sed to even try to protect any images.I think that the simplest way,if you don't want your work pinched,that you shouldn't put it on the web.

Incog.

[zoombini]

You could always just say "please" ...dont pinch em they are mine...lol

Who do think will pinch them ?