Take extra precautions when putting your images online.
However, there are plenty of sharks surfing these online oceans, ready to steal images from your site for their own use. You’ve got to take extra precautions when putting your images online, so here’s what you can do to prevent image theft.
How can I go about protecting images on my site?
You could disable the ability to right-click on an image, but this has usability consequences and is not foolproof. You can put a blank file over your image in the coding of your website, but lets face it, not everyone can speak the language and there are ways for thieves to get around it if they know what they’re doing. Cue watermarking.
Watermarking may not be the prettiest way of protecting your images, but its effectiveness can’t be ignored. You are essentially sticking your name on your photos. The most common way would be to use translucent text over your image. This way, you still have good visibility of the image without too much distraction, but enough to mark it as your own.
What can I use to watermark my images?
There are countless programs, plugins and websites you can use to watermark your images. They all do the same job, so find one that’s free and easy to use. Especially if you have lots of images to watermark, it’s important to be comfortable with the software you’re using. If you are using Wordpress, try this watermarking plugin; it has all the features necessary for professional watermarking, and will watermark images automagically when you upload them via the CMS (as well as allowing you to bulk-watermark the existing images in your media library).
Knowing your images are safe on the web is – especially if you are a business owner – extremely comforting. You can’t stop someone taking your images; you can only hinder their end product. Using a watermark is enough to deter even the biggest and hungriest shark from taking your not-so-vulnerable images, because you put your name on it first.
Help make other people aware about image theft and how they can prevent it by sharing this post. And don’t forget to leave a comment. We love a good chat.
