Protect your images online

If you’re a professional photographer (or artist) posting your images online, you’re no doubt aware of the copyright issues and the whole question of how best to protect your work.

Of course, in an ideal world, the simple addition of a copyright symbol © would be sufficient to deter others from using (or abusing) your images but, as we all know, the internet is far a from ideal place and posting photos or images online is an open invitation to others to help themselves.

A small copyright notice can be easily erased or cropped out of an image and anything larger will obscure the image and might be detrimental to the piece.

One solution is to embed a digital watermark in photos and images that you post online. OK, it won’t stop people from actually stealing your stuff but it will deter them (if they know it’s there) and will prove that you’re the owner of any copyright, and the originator of the work.

Digital watermarking is invisible to the eye and won’t obsure the image or spoil it for the viewer. It embeds a code throughout the image that can be detected with a dedicated reader (plugin) and resists attempts to circumvent it by reprocessing the image or using it in deriative works.

Digimarc are leaders in the field of digital watermarking and provide a range of cost effective solutions enabling you to choose a package to suit your needs.

If you value your work and consider it worth protecting online, Digimarc will do the job (the more expensive package enables you to track your images online and detect unauthorised usage).