Safe from what exactly? Well…
THEFT! of course.
Truthfully, most people aren’t concerned about people stealing their images on the Internet. Should you be?
Perhaps. That’s the simple answer. Or how about; It depends?
If you are considering selling your photos in any way shape or form then you are going to be responsible for securing your images on the websites you use to share your images. Even if you don’t think you’ll be selling your pictures, you may still find it heartbreaking that someone stole one of your images from a photo-sharing website and is using it to advertise a product or service that you may or may not agree with.
It’s theft. Pure and simple. And regardless of which photo-sharing site you use, it is your responsibility to deter theft as much as possible.
So how does one go about preventing theft?
- Only upload smaller images. Realistically a digital image will look great at even a measley 500 pixels on it’s longest size. You could do more, but I wouldn’t recommend more than 800 pixels. Sure, someone could still take your image and use it on a website, but at least you won’t be driving down the highway and see it plastered on a billboard, and at that size you can’t get a good print made.
- Watermarking images can be a great way to show ownership of images and usually implies copyright. Now some people can remove a watermark on an image with practice but those people can and will be able to steal whatever images they please. Can’t really do much about that other than totally plastering your images with logos or other watermarks.
- Secure your settings on whatever photo-sharing website you use. Most websites will offer a security setting to allow or disallow people/contacts/friends/strangers or whatever to download the images. Learn them and use them properly.
My suggestion is to use a combination of at least two of these methods. Example: I don’t watermark my images (yet?) but I do only upload smaller images and make sure that security settings are super tight. Now that I’m selling prints as fine art photography I may be going back and watermarking those images in the very near future. I’m still debating.
Some people really love to share their large images to show off the great care used to capture very detailed photographs. That’s fine and all, but I do suggest at least adding a small and unobtrusive watermark otherwise you’re just asking someone to “borrow” it for an ad campaign and skip paying a photographer thousands of dollars.
I want to hear what you think about Internet security and your images. Do you use security measures? Do you care if your images are stolen and used or even printed? What do you do to secure your images?
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One of the most important things a photographer can now do is embed metadata in their photography. Embedding your name, contact info and web site are essential for people to be able to track you down if they’re interested in using your work legitimately. This doesn’t negate image theft, but it does make it easier for those who’d like to properly license your work.