Suggested Website Image Size Display to Dissuade Theft - 1,000 Pixel Width Too Large?

[tapp]

I've read several posts here and on other sites about taking precautionary steps to dissuade the unauthorized use of images. Yes, I know anything you place on the internet can be stolen so its best to provide something that not very useful for printing and which requires a too much effort to retouch.

I've purchased a custom domain and have customized the CSS of an existing Blogger template so that it appears a regular web site. I've tested the site on mobile devices and computers. I have a unique brand name with logos. The main reason of using Blogger is that there are no storage limits if you allow images to be uploaded via the "high quality" setting verses the the original quality setting.

I've created a series of custom image presents in PhotoMill to provide web versions of my master images. These presets add EXIF data; add a brand watermark logo which incorporates a copyright notice; and reduces each image's physical size. Images are compressed by Google Photos as it does great job at reducing each file's size, although I could also add that as well to the batch processing.

I have tried several automatic watermark removing apps on the logo and none have done a great job at completing the task. Of course someone could retouch the images by hand, but they would still be getting images with limited pixels only suitable for web display or for a tiny quality print.

Currently images are display at width of 1,000 pixels, with various heights, as this completely fills the content area of each webpage (excluding the left and right margins). A photograph of a antique typewritten letter with tiny type; for instance, can be easily read by site visitors at this size.

I am still concerned this may be too large. A 1000 x 1294 image might still provide thieves an incentive to reuse an image.

1000 x 1294 @ 72
13.889” x 17.979 @ 72
Print Size @ 150 = 6.67” x 8.627”
Print Size @ 240 = 4.167” x 5.392”
Print Size @ 300 = 3.333” x 4.313”

I had previously set up a test store on Zazzle and sold multiple images on several products. While there I became aware of other Zazzler users having a problem with mostly Chinese based merchants stealing their images from Zazzle and selling them on print on demand products on Amazon. These Chinese merchants did not have access to the high quality photos within each Zazzle's account but were stealing the product preview images and using those. Those preview images are were large enough to print many smaller sized products. A few Zazzle designers had a little fun with the thieves and added phrases such as "image stolen from..." or a Zazzle logo to their images and even those images were stolen as well.

Any thoughts?

 

[Fujidave]

I have heard that Pixsy.com are very good, they will cover most countries in case of copyright theft.

 

[Fujidave]

Here is the link.

https://www.pixsy.com/

 

[Jeff15]

I always reduce the size of an image before posting, 1024 x 768 works for me.

 

[webestang64]

I post nothing but 8x10 at 72 res..... 720 x 576.

 

[bribrius]

Most of my photos aren't worth stealing. And the ones i would post definately aren't

 

[Derrel]

One has to decide if one wants photos to look good or to post tiny stuff it's not worth stealing. One helps one's reputation, the other one hurts. But yeah, if you want to dissuade unauthorized use, then go 500 pixels wide up to perhaps as large as 640 pixels on the long axis. The photos don't look that great, but people get the idea of what the photo is about.

 

[Overread]

One thing I've noticed is that as people own bigger and bigger screens with higher resolutions, photos get smaller! A 1K longest side fits a large area of my screen, but looks a lot smaller on a more modern screen that might be twice the size in resolution.

So if you start heading toward 500 pixels and the like then you're not just restricting use, but also potentially the visual impact of your photos on many modern users. It's a trade-off. You either make them so small theft is unattractive, but at the same time viewing them online is too; or you make them larger and accept that you might get someone rip them off. By and large though the direct impact to yourself should be your main concern; its more likely that any one ripping off even 1K photos is likely making a very low end product and probably serving a market you don't interact with. Meanwhile your market is far more important to attract to you directly.

Ergo its worth the risk for you; more so than it is to shut down the scammer at a cost of you then losing advertising and appeal to your own direct market.

 

[Orrin]

The images on my on-line gallery rang from 500 to 700 pixels on the long side.
The idea is to show some of my work, not to fill the screen on someone's oversized monitor!

 

[petrochemist]

I usually resize my web images to 1000 pixels in the biggest dimension. Even so one or two have turned up being used elsewhere. Most of mine aren't worth pinching or even sharing, but I've managed a few lucky shots.
I don't think there's a size big enough to make it worth sharing that isn't also big enough for other people to use.