I have bought a web-site, which is being hosted on a 3rd

party's web server. I almost 100% sure its Win 2k03.

My intention is to offer an online art gallery service. The

website is an out-of-the-box, not designed necesarily for

this purpose. All I am really concerned for, it to protect the

images as far as reasonably possible from being

downloaded from the internet. One person told me

something, but was not able to explain how it was done.
The website the person was talking about, had good

quality images, or they appeared good quality on the

screen. But when they downloaded them and viewed them

on their computer, in fact all they had was a thumb nail

size picture. When they tried to increase the size of the

image, it went all fuzzy really quickly, so the image was

not really any good to use. This kind of protection is

perhaps what we're after. Screen image looks good, but

downloading the image, by using right-click is either

disabled or if successful, then its no real use.
Is there some software i need to buy to protect the

images?

Thank-you very much for your help.

to protect the images as far as reasonably possible

That's so true because you can't have a 100% protection.

How about using watermarks?

About techniques on making it hard to save the image, there are many. Some of them not worth it and can be considered as annoyance.

"Site giving thumbnails when you save an image".

My guess it's only CSS and JavaScript play. Basically you put a transparent fake image (thumbnail with enlarged size) above the real image so when people right-click and save, they get the thumbnail.

I agree with Laler. even though we can disable right mouse clicks or transparent image technique using java script, we can't protect the images from even a semi technical person using those methods. even water marking can't be 100% secure. in summary there is no 100% effective solution for your problem.

nb

free fast anonymous web proxy

Thank-you very much for the responses, i have read them with interest. What is intriguing me, is how to you perform this technique.
Suppose i have a picture called
highdefpicture.jpg (say 100mb) How do i turn this into a thumbnail? Would photoshop be able to do this? Also how do i then create the enlarged image using Java, to give this false view in IE. Is there some software i can use?
As i said, i have been given an out of the box website, and its up to me how i use it after creation. The rest of its down to me, and i do not know how to do anything to do with websites.

It's sounds as if you are just getting into web development. It also seems as if you've set the bar pretty high as to what you want to accomplish.

I have no idea what the website was doing that you mention, but I agree with Laler, that it was really nothing more than smoke an mirrors. The simple fact is that ANYTHING that is displayed to the user is very easily extracted, copied, etc. All images displayed to the user have already been downloaded to their cache.

Images displayed ona web site should be created at 72dpi for the size they will be displayed. Anythign higher than that is a waste (unless you want to be able to increase the size - which you don't). 72dpi is great for viewing on a monitor but will look crappy if printed.

All of the "tricks" to prevent people from getting your immages only gives a false sense of security in my opinion, because they can be had. I would strongly suggest using watermarks as Laler suggested. If done propery then it is very difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to reuse your photos w/o it being obvious.

Michael J

Well you're right, i'm just getting in to web development, perhaps because i seen an opportunity.

OK...watermarks it is then.... and bring image down to 72dpi. I was in the pub the other day talking to someone who doesn't do anything to do with the web, but they are into design, and even they said, bring the image quality down to 72dpi, it'll be OK for the screen, but no good for printing. I understand that i can do this in Photoshop.

So how do i go about creating a watermark, putting the watermarks on the images, and make sure its neigh on impossible to get rid of /remove.

i sm really learning a lot of over these last few days.
So a big thank-you for all your efforts.

"So how do i go about creating a watermark, putting the watermarks on the images, and make sure its neigh on impossible to get rid of /remove."

Youcan do that in Photoshop as well. Just do a google search for "Photoshop watermark" and you should get some good hits.

How do you make it so it can't be reversed? You need to place the watermark such that it can't simply be cropped out (i.e. don't put it along the sides). The watermark needs to be in the subject of the photo and it should not be too subtle that someone could "undo" it.

Michael J

Thank-you very much everyone for this. i went back to the person who is going to do this for me, and they've got it now. Apparantly you can make the watermark appear over the whole image, but just make it transparent 100% on a layer. Then it will get flattened and its in there for good.
I'm very happy! :)!