is putting pictures online a good idea?

[rmarcus9]

hi everyone, i'm knew to photography and thought about creating a website (using wordpress) to publish my work online so my family, friends, and also strangers can see everything. i haven't put that much thought into making a career out of it, but if i do is it a bad idea to publish my work online? does that take the originallity out of it at all? for example, if later down the road i want to put my photos in a gallery, does the fact that someone else can pull them off my website and publish them themselves in the same quality or better take away any value? if my photos don't exist anywhere except on my computer and printed at my discretion doesn't it make them more valuable then if they are published online? then again i feel like if i dont have a portfolio online it may be hard to get noticed, like a catch 22. if someone can help me out on this that would be great. thanks everyone

 

[KvnO]

There are ways of protecting your images online. For example, many people add watermarks and upload small, low-resolution versions. There are other ways, I'd do some more research if I were you.

Many pros have websites and probably haven't lost a dime.

Good luck.

 

[epp_b]

If you're photos are only on your hard drive, how can you expect to get noticed? Risking copyright infringement is a cost of doing business.

Watermarks and low resolution files are fine as long as they're not too annoying. A 500px wide image will look fine on a screen, but will print like garbage at any reasonable size.

 

[Joves]

Also read the Terms of Service on some sites. There are alot of the free sites that give themselves far too many rights to other peoples photos this includes many of the manufacturers sites. The pay sites are the safest like smugmug.

 

[TheSon]

The questions you're asking, in this day and age, are kind of crazy.

The whole point of the internet is to post your pictures on a site and get recognition. If no one saw your photos, the only people you'd be selling them to are you family and friends.

Everyone who's ANYONE has their photos, paintings, music, videos, etc online for the world to see and be aware. That is the only way to "make it" these days on a low budget.

If you were a band, and someone asked to see your website and you said, "I don't have any music online for fear that someone will steal it." They'd think you were crazy (and paranoid).

If people download and try to re-print your work, take it as flattery and then sue their asses. But in the meantime, I think you have a looong way to go before you have to worry about this problem.

PS... you can always use a flash based website to make it impossible for them to right click and DL like mine: sonnydelite.com

 

[chrisburke]

^^^ first, i wouldnt say the whole point of the internet is to post pictures.. i hear its great for other things too...

the main problem with posting photos on the internet, is theres always ways around just about anything you can do to "protect" your image.

if you use flickr, there is the "spaceball" download, which stops people from right click - saving your images, however there is a way around that with screen shots, this is the same with flash based sites, you can just screen shot them.

if you put a watermark on your images, unless its big and obtrusive (like mine) it can be removed with a little bit of photoshop know how...

bottom line, if you fear having your images stolen, don't put them online... if your ok with it, giver shiver... uploading smaller images is always a good help.. but sometimes people are only looking for a small picture, maybe to use for their website or something like that.. so small images sometimes work for people.

heres a sample of my watermark.. little bit harder to remove, i mean it can be done, but it is a bit harder than the typical "copyright name 2009" which people tend to put in the bottom of their pics

 

[flea77]

PS... you can always use a flash based website to make it impossible for them to right click and DL like mine: sonnydelite.com

You do realize it makes it slightly more difficult for the lay person to get your pictures but no where near impossible, right?

Allan

BTW, nice pics on your site.

 

[epp_b]

Also read the Terms of Service on some sites. There are alot of the free sites that give themselves far too many rights to other peoples photos this includes many of the manufacturers sites. The pay sites are the safest like smugmug.

Good point.

I am a website developer by trade, so I created my own photo gallery website and host it on a computer in my bedroom (seriously) so I can post my photos on my own terms.

There are tools that you can use to generate website photo galleries. Once that's done, it's just a matter of hosting and domain registration (which are sometimes combined into one service to make it even easier) which will probably end up being less than $100 a year.

You do realize it makes it slightly more difficult for the lay person to get your pictures but no where near impossible, right?

Exactly right. Computers are machines designed for copying and they will only continue to get better at it. You can put watermarks on your photos so that attribution remains intact, but trying to keep people from copying your photos is a wasted effort.

 

[stsinner]

Hey, epp_b-I have been to some websites where I right click to download an image to view the exif and a message comes up saying that this is not allowed.. How do they do that? Maybe that's an answer for the OP. The only alternative then would be a screenshot, which will be poor quality at best.

 

[chrisburke]

Hey, epp_b-I have been to some websites where I right click to download an image to view the exif and a message comes up saying that this is not allowed.. How do they do that? Maybe that's an answer for the OP. The only alternative then would be a screenshot, which will be poor quality at best.

this is the "spaceball" thing I was referring to. if your disable downloading with flickr, when someone tries to download your picture, a file gets downloaded that is called "spaceball" and its just a blank image. SmugMug also has disabled downloads.. but as I also said, its very easy to get these images if you know how to take a screen shot... disabled downloads is NOT a reliable way to protect your images, because if the person has ANY computer know how, they know that they cant just do a "print screen" or screen capture and they have the image.

 

[epp_b]

Hey, epp_b-I have been to some websites where I right click to download an image to view the exif and a message comes up saying that this is not allowed.. How do they do that? Maybe that's an answer for the OP. The only alternative then would be a screenshot, which will be poor quality at best.

It's done using Javascript. You can find these scripts for free all over the place just by searching for them. I suggest not wasting your time on it, it will only foil the very dumbest of users (who will then simply search for ways to get around it or get a more savvy friend to get around it for them)

Disabling Javascript, viewing the source and finding the image path and taking a screenshot are only a few of the ways to very easily grab an image where right clicking is disabled.

The only alternative then would be a screenshot, which will be poor quality at best.

Nope, a screenshot captures exactly what's on screen, no quality degredation.

 

[swatspyder]

It's done using Javascript. You can find these scripts for free all over the place just by searching for them. I suggest not wasting your time on it, it will only foil the very dumbest of users (who will then simply search for ways to get around it or get a more savvy friend to get around it for them)

Disabling Javascript, viewing the source and finding the image path and taking a screenshot are only a few of the ways to very easily grab an image where right clicking is disabled.


Nope, a screenshot captures exactly what's on screen, no quality degredation.

This is all very easy to do.

Just place a simple watermark on your images. If you do end up finding your image being used by someone else, you can always sue them or have their ISP remove the image or website.

 

[epp_b]

Just place a simple watermark on your images. If you do end up finding your image being used by someone else, you can always sue them or have their ISP remove the image or website.

The point of putting a watermark is so that you can always claim attribution.

 

[TheSon]

You do realize it makes it slightly more difficult for the lay person to get your pictures but no where near impossible, right?

You are incorrect. It makes it impossible to right click and save as (that is what I was saying). There are ways around that like screen shots that you can use, but good luck trying to print a decent looking image from a small screen shot. It'll come out looking like crap.

Thanks for the compliment btw.

Nope, a screenshot captures exactly what's on screen, no quality degredation.

The quality degradation is that your screenshot is only 5x7 (or whatever size the photo is on your screen). That is a huge quality degradation compared to the original 20x30 image (or whatever it is). All they're getting is restricted to the size of their monitor. Try printing out your screen shot and see how good it looks.



PS... I think all of the amateurs, like the OP (not talking about pros), are way to paranoid that people are trying to steal their photos and make money off of them. Worry about that a couple of years down the road if and when your income is strictly from your amazing (or crappy) work.

 

[epp_b]

The quality degradation is that your screenshot is only 5x7 (or whatever size the photo is on your screen). That is a huge quality degradation compared to the original 20x30 image (or whatever it is). All they're getting is restricted to the size of their monitor. Try printing out your screen shot and see how good it looks.

I think you misunderstood me.

If you have a 500x300 pixel image and that's the biggest size you put online, it will look and print the same whether you right-click-and-save-as, drag to the desktop, view the source and find the image URL, use a network packet analyzer to find the image URL or take a screenshot.

You will never, ever keep of people from copying a photo online. It's a technical impossibility. Given that fact, the simplest set of guidelines I can give you are:

1) Post photos at resolutions that can be reasonably viewed on a screen, but not printed at reasonable sizes. 500 or 600 pixels for the long side is about right.

2) Put a watermark on your photos if you're concerned about someone copying them and claiming attribution ("ownership").