RedGage

How to Protect Your Photos

Hopefully everyone on RedGage is in-tune with posting their own original content - ie photos you took yourself, blogs that are your own creative writing. But then the question comes, "How do I protect the things I create and post to RedGage or other places on the internet"?

First thing you should know is - nothing on the internet is fool-proof! ... and there is always a "fool" willing to try and "prove" that!

RedGage is one of the few web communities that has tried to make the theft of photos more difficult through thwarting the easy right-click/copy mechanism of most browsers. This helps keep the average web viewer honest, but is not complete protection from those that are bent on taking an image you have posted. And yes, I know several ways to circumvent that protection ... but NO! I won't be sharing that knowledge with you! But, I will share some things you can do to make your original creative photos less desirable to content thieves. Some of these tips can also help your photos upload easier and quicker to RedGage.

Suggested Three Step Photo Protection Scheme for RedGage:
1 - Size
2 - Resolution
3 - Watermarking

Size your photos: Most sites have a standard size they display photos, and it mostly has to do with the width of the display area. On RedGage that width is about 500 pixels. Uploaded photos that are larger than 500px in width are resized by the system during the upload process, however that may result in a longer sequence to get your photo posted and the system may be more prone to time-out during upload. The best thing to do is "size" your photos to match the site you are posting to.
RedGage does not enlarge photos to fit the space, a photo that is only 375px wide will not be stretched to fill the 500px space; however, some sites resize all pics to absolutely fit their space regardless if the pic is larger or smaller.  If you post to several sites you should learn the sizing for all sites and pick a size that is the best fit - ie RG is 500px, Site02 is 550px, Site03 is 600px - and if Site02 resizes everything to fit into their 550px you will find that photos sized for RedGage's 500px will get stretched about 10% to fill the void. So in this example you might want to size for Site02.

Why is Size important to protecting your photos? First it is a waste of time, bandwidth/processor, and pixels to upload your full 10-megapixel photo to a site that is only going to display 10% or less of that complete photo file. Second, while some websites might only display the 500px to 600px width photo on the page, they none-the-less archive the whole file you uploaded. If content thieves find that archive they can download your whole lovely 10-megapixel photo and do what they want with it! Note: As far as I can tell, RedGage's photo archives save your photos as the posted 500px display image or less if your uploaded photo was smaller than 500px.

Image Resolution: High resolution images are brighter, prettier, and well, just better to look at, and ... are more tempting to thieves. Of course you don't want to post fuzzy, blurry, or pixelated photos, but you can lower the resolution of your photos some before posting to the web without making them ugly. When you are resizing your photos for web posting you can also set them to be saved at less than 100% resolution. Dropping the resolution to 80% even 70% will still result in a pleasant web-photo for your viewers without discernable lost of quality at the size displayed on RedGage and most other communities.

Why do it? Lowering resolution together with sizing your photos to just fit your favourite web community will aid in uploading your photos by reducing the overall file size of your photos - smaller files upload faster and more efficiently. The combination of just-right size and low-res makes the photos less usable by content thieves, as your photos will only look good at that size - ie 500px - and will distort and pixelate if a thief trys to enlarge your photo for some other purpose, such as trying to sell your photos as posters, on t-shirts, or other commercial items.

Admittedly, low-res and right-sized photos can still be taken and reposted to other sites with similar sized display areas, but sizing and resolution will help deter thieves that wish to use your photos commercially. Step 3 - Watermarking - is going to be your best protection, but it works much better in conjunction with right-sizing and lower resolution as a complete scheme to protect your photos.

To be honest, I really hated having to start watermarking my photos. For many years I did not mark up my photos. I liked sharing my photos, especially my travel photos, without the ugly © symbols splashed all over them. For one thing, I wanted to trust my Web Friends, and secondly, I was already a promoter of right-sizing and lowering resolution to just present a nice image with my articles. That was partly because it speeded up page-loading, saved disk space, and 20 years ago the first digital camera photos were rather low-res and small size to begin with. Times have changed and so has the internet - web-servers offer terabytes of storage and unlimited bandwidth for just a few bucks a month, and people have taken to uploading 10, 12, even 20 megapixel pics of not only their friends and family, but their backed-up toilets, flat tires, and other items of "interest" ... and sometimes even some really good pics worth looking at.

Today, even standard cellphone photo resolutions are reaching 5megapixels and higher! Higher quality photos and more of them, has prompted many to start taking photos ... but not with their own cameras! No, they take them from sites like National Geographic, Wikipedia, and supposed "free" wallpaper sites (where the wallpaper site got the images to begin with is usually a mystery and typically involves a previous theft!) and even from web communities like RedGage! Why some people "take" photos and what they do with the "taken" photos varies, but some people are looking to make a quick buck off your photos! They might post them to a site like RedGage hoping to make a little cash, or they might try to use your photos in a more commercial venue to creat products to sell. Four years ago someone tried to abscound with some of my photos for an unauthorized commercial product, they were caught and prosecuted, and since then I have resigned myself to having to watermark my photos. Using a watermark on your photos can dissuade others from trying to use your photos, you can also have a little creative fun with your watermarks.

Watermarking your Photos: A real "watermark" was originally an image or text placed on higher quality stationary type products that did not interfer with the use of the paper but could be faintly seen when the item was held at certain angles. "Watermarks" on digital photographs are really just an image or text added to the image, hopefully in a way that is does not completely obliterate the viewing of the image, but to designate ownership.

A watermark is akin to Royal/divine wax seals of times past, and to the Asian practice of using a "chop" - a special and personal symbol usually in red ink - on artwork and correspondence. Have some fun with your watermark! Seeing the ubiquitous "©some-ones-name/date" across so many photos on the webs gets boring. I suggest you try to creat a unique and artful watermark that compliments your style, taste, and/or personality for your digital images. All my photos on RedGage have watermarks, here is an example of one I was creating for this year. 

How do I Watermark my Photos? Actually watermarking is quite easy to do, and can be done using simple applications you probably already have on your home computer. Also there are software apps you can buy, and even some you can download for free, that can aid in watermarking your photos.

The basics of watermarking:
1 - Create your watermark. Whether you create something unique or just want your name on your pics you start by making the template. Even with the pay-for or shareware watermarking apps you will probably need to create a watermark image template to be applied to your photos, some of those apps may have a built-in editor to assist creating your template. Let's make a basic "©your-name-date" type watermark.

Begin with an image editor that has a text-tool (most do).
Start a new image.
Use the "text" tool to add "©your-name-date" in a font and size you like. Standard black text on white background is a good choice.
Crop this image to just large enough to capture the text.
Save image first as type .jpg and then as type .gif. During the .gif save select the white background as the transparent color.

Want to get creative? Add an image to your watermark, or use fancy fonts, flow your text at an angle or wave.

2 - Next you will apply your watermark template to your photos. You can copy and paste the transparent background .gif version of the watermark you created to your photos manually using your basic graphic/photo editing software or use it with a watermarking app. This is where the watermarking apps come in handy - positioning and tweaking the appearance of your watermark, and when watermarking a large amount of photos at one time.

The app will ask where your watermark template or image is stored.
It will also need a directory/folder of photos to mark, and another location where it will save the newly watermarked photos.
Some watermark apps have settings for where on the photo to place your watermark, sizing of watermark, transparency, feathering, and other settings.
The app may also offer other editing features - ie resizing, setting resolution, naming/renaming, etc - to be applied to the photos at the same it watermarks them.
Put in your preferred settings and directory locations and you are ready to click the enter/submit/GO! button.

I recommend you use a different output directory so as not to over-write your original photos, especially when you are first trying a watermarking app.

One of the easiest and simplest, plus FREE! apps you can use for many basic photo editing jobs is IrfanView . Using the "Batch Conversion/Rename" option you can take a directory of photos recently downloaded from your camera and change the name from the generic camera name that often looks something like 100455_998354.jpg to say MothersDay2011_###.jpg (where the ### will be a different number-001,002,003,etc-for each photo), resize the photos to fit RedGage, set the resolution at 80%, and place a ©-yourname-date text on your photos in one operation.

Some other options for shareware watermark apps:
uMark Lite   http://www.uconomix.com/umark/
TSR Image   http://www.watermark-image.com
Pictureshark   http://www.picture-shark.com

One more reason to Watermark your photos:
Orphan Works - The Legalization of stealing of your online images!
There are "orphan works" bills being actively pushed in the United States and other countries to circumvent existing digital-property-rights by aggressive corporate lobbying - ie Google/Picasa, Yahoo/Flickr, PhotoBucket, and other photo-storage sites that lure members to post their digital images for the corporations' gain. Be aware that just by using some of those sites you already give up significant digital property rights just being a member. Don't let the already fat corporations steal your content and make money off your hard work!