They say you haven’t arrived as an artist until someone steals your image. If you’ve ever had it happen, you know what a disheartening thing it is, you feel violated and very angry. There are even websites where you can take an image directly from social media and order a print of the image.
So, what can you do?
Well, you can try what lots of photographers do and put the copyright logo on your images. If you put it in the corner, that area can be cropped out and then printed. Putting it in the middle is an option.
That though can really distract from the image.
I have seen a photographer who does the example below, but I have to wonder why they even bother posting.
So, once again, what can you do?
Well, you can make it so if they steal your image it is of little to no use. The way you do that is by re-sizing your images, or if you want to take it a step further, web optimize your image.
It’s very easy, lets take a look.
Her’s my image.
If I select properies of this image, we see that this image is it is currently 9MB.
To resize the image in Photoshop, go to Image, then Image Size.
When the dialog box appears, make certain the aspect ratio is locked. When it’s locked, there will be a line from the top and botom of the lock icon as you see in the picture below.
You will also want to have your width and height set to Pixels. Just click the drop down box and select pixels.
Now you will change the size of your image by selecting the widest part of the image, the width or height with the largest number, and change that number to 1200.
The smaller number will automatically adjust. In this example image we took the image from 3726 by 2484 pixels down to 1200 by 800 pixels. At 1200by 800 pixels your image will now look great on any computer screen, tablet or mobile device.
Next click OK and then sleect Save As
Now this important, you want to change the name of the file so that you don’t overwrite the original file.
So, we’ve resized our image and it still looks the same, but let’s check out the new properties. When we started, the image file was 9MB.
Now it’s only 562KB. To take it a setp further, consider Web optimizing your image.
To Web Optimze it, there is an additional step.
Go to File, then Export, then select Save for Web (legacy)
When the dialog box appears, I usually go with the auto settings, (Jpg High) but you can change anything as you prefer.
And then select Save.
Now, Our image that started off as a 9MB file is now just 172KB.
Your image will look great on a screen, but if someone steals this file, it will be of little to no use as it is too small to do anything with.
There’s how to protect your images by resizing and web optimizing.
If you found this helpful, please leave a comment below.
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Dan Wampler
Dan Wampler is a digital artist from St Louis, MO. Having been interested in art and photography since childhood, he spent most of adult life working for Kodak and in the portrait photography industry. A student of the works of Ansel Adams, Any Warhol, and David Hamilton, Dan attempted to keep a wide range of artistic style.
As an early adopter of digital imaging, he found it gave him a way to completely incorporate art and photography. Began shooting Digital Infrared in 2004, and had first camera converted in 2006. His work has been seen in numerous gallery shows, is featured in an iTunes app. He produces Infrared and natural color digital art for sale and teaches his post-production techniques online.
Dan is LifePixel's Creative Director, social media manager, lead blog author, main workshops and training sessions instructor. His images appear in this gallery and throughout the website.
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Hi! Me again, I fully agree that we’re much better off changing the resolution than trying to stick a watermark in the middle and destroying the image. Although, if you use your name, and the person stealing the image isn’t doing it to be a conniving thief, but only because they want to share it, putting your name in an inconspicuous spot is a great way to keep your name or brand on the image should it be shared without your knowledge!
Also, when posting something off of my phone, I will often take multiple screenshots of the image and post the 5th generation. Still haven’t figured out the best way to handle it on my website though. Obviously when purchasing something online we often only have that image to go by for what kind of quality to expect. Although people can’t download from my site, they can easily do a screen shot and have a decent enough copy to do a few things with it…