On my web site I use low res small medium quality JPGs, so I have not bothered to mark them to protect from theft. I have been asked to participate in lending my photos for a local cable TV station that advertises real estate and eating/entertainment sites. They want to use my seascapes between adds. They want 200dpi photos at about 12" wide, which are big enough to steal and make decent size prints. I have photoshop CS and Elements 5.0; how can I mark them permantly to prevent theft?
Thanks in advance.
Dave G in NJ
www.modernpictorials.com

First off... lend??? They should be offering to pay you if even a nominal fee to use them. What are they going to do for you in exchange for "lending" the images to them?


As to someone stealing them, I seriously doubt it would be worth the time to figure out how to capture an image off a TV good enough to make a print from. If you try to shoot the TV screen, most images will have that line thru it as the screen refreshes.

I wouldn't worry about it.

You can watermark your pictures using several softwares found by googling. But that doesn't prevent or even limit theft. If somebody wants to steal your photos, they will, and a visible or "invisible" watermark won't stop them.

Watermarking software is used mainly to separate people who don't understand digital media from their money. The only real benefit from them is that you can include your contact info, but again, that doesn't prevent theft. And if it's an invisible marker, the potential customer needs special software to see the contact info. IOW, the result is easier to achieve and more useful for the potential client using metadata and/or a visible watermark.

Thanks for your concern. In exchange for using my photos, the TV station will advertise my web site, and also refer people to the restraunt where 70 of my prints are on display. Seems like a fair barter to me.
Thanks for the advice to all.
Dave

David - to answer the question you actually asked: do you mean a visible watermark to prevent screen capture, or an invisible one that allows you to track the image is it is used elsewhere? It's hard to tell, as I am not quite clear how the image is being used: we don't have cable where I live, so I have no idea how one might take the image.

If you want a visible watermark to deter printing - create a new layer and put your watermark text/image on that. Then adjust the transparency till you get a visible but not too obtrusive effect, and flatten the image. (By doing this, you may make it harder to select and remove the mark, as it isn't all one colour.)

For an invisible one - there are several services you can subscribe to for tracking images. For example, http://www.digimarc.com/

They don't prevent stealing - but I think you can set the mark so it interferes with printing as well as enabling tracking if used on the web.

It was my understanding that most invisible watermarks can be defeated by simply resizing or changing the image resolution in Photoshop. If Photoshop is smart enough to recognize a watermark and re-place it back in the resized image, or simply not let you re-work it, I'm sure there are plenty of tools aren't that smart.

And of course there's the venerable screen capture if a 72dpi image is good enough for them.

As for tagging, I'm sure there are plenty of tools that can strip that information out as well.

The bottom line is that there really isn't too much you can do if someone really wants your image and you've given them a reasonably high resolution version of it. I suppose that's what the courts are for.

However I'm hoping that someone here can educate me and that the outlook isn't as bleak as I might think it is.

~iGuy

One reasonably good way to send proofs to people is to print to an adobe acrobat file with password protection. this allow people to preview the image on screen without the ability to print or export the embeded images from it. You are still at risk of people doing screen captures, etc...but then no tools are totally secure, though a screen capture for import into InDesign is more hassle than actually paying for an image. Acrobat also allows you to embed the images into the file with ICC profiles so that you can send colour managed images if you need to.

In Photoshop CS3 the function is Tools->Photoshop->PDF Presentation...so you don't have to buy a full version of Acrobat as the functionality is already included in PS.

There are free cracking tools to break the .pdf password protection, and many of them don't even require brute-forcing the key (ie. they work in seconds instead of days).

The problem with all DRM "solutions" is that they are a hassle for the customer, and they don't stop anyone determined to steal your work who knows how to use google. It's all snake-oil.

End result: you waste your own time and frustrate the customer, but achieve no protection for your files.

So what do you suggest - sit in a steel lined bunker for the rest of your life?

If I remember correctly everything can be stolen, broken into, or whatever, whilst you are correct to point out there are tools around for the determined to steel should they wish to do so there are also mechanism such as pdf files which work well for both photographer and client.

I guess you misunderstood my point: people who spend time and money on (invisible) watermarks, password-protected files and other forms of DRM are wasting their own, and their clients' time and money. Circumventing any photo DRM is trivial - hell, you can most of the time just ignore it -, and you're just alienating customers with silly passworded files, or compromising the quality of your prints by giving out "invisibly" watermarked files.

So, it's better to just leave your files as is, and include metadata and/or visible watermark with copyright and contact info.

I have no idea what the steel bunker quip is supposed to mean in this context.

You are most correct in that once the image is downloaded it is on the computer and can be utilized. Some have used a Java script to disable right clicking, but again that is easy to circumvent.

The approach I have taken is to post all images at 800 px either high or wide at 72 dpi. PS is used to place a large transparent embossed copyright symbol in the center of the image. A PS action takes care of that. Then on the bottom of the image in light gray are two lines of copy. One with a contact email address and the other a copyright 2007 line.

Someone can take these to Sam's Club or Walmart and make prints if the operator is not caring or watching. Cut off the two lines of text and print. Will they look great, perhaps not, but they got what they paid or in this case did not pay for..... And of course these are only proof images without any PS work so a lot of time was not spent on fixing all of the image issues.

Jim