Preventing Picture downloads

[MSKenyon]

Hello all,

My Client would like to open a 2nd Website, Where in she would sell pictures taken. Is their a way to prevent the customer from just downloading it? I know theirs a way to prevent right clicking and so forth. But for the adamant customer, is their a way?

--Matt

[stevesh]

If she has the images on the website at full resolution, then no. Most photographers who sell images online provide smaller, thumbnail versions for the customers' viewing and the full resolution versions are available when purchased.

There's no sense in your client pretending to protect her images with something like the right-click disabling, which is just a 'security theater' sort of thing that doesn't stop anyone from doing anything.

[lhungil]

No. The way the internet and HTTP/HTTPS work is by downloading a copy of the content from the web server to the computer of the person viewing the website. The webpage (and content such as images) are then displayed on the computer the person is using to browse the internet. So anything you can publicly see in a web browser has been saved on the website visitors (customer's) computer (somewhere) and you cannot stop them from doing anything with the content.

However you can simply NOT display the full resolution, touched up, and non-watermarked image on the website. Your client can make the final image a virtual "downloadable" image and add a lower resolution, watermarked, and non-touched up image for the product. Worst case the customer has a low resolution image with a watermark (removing the watermark will be time consuming if the watermark is well placed / blended in)...

Yes it is an extra step for the client, but if they have access to PhotoShop or Gimp a custom watermark is relatively easy to add. If the Zen Cart installation includes IH4, you can configure IH4 to add a watermark (not as good as a custom blended watermark) and just tell your client to upload only low resolution versions of their images for the product page.

[MSKenyon]

Hmmm. I knew that Web browsers Dl'ed the image. Just wasnt sure if their was a way NOT to. o-well.

Sounds like an idea with the Watermark. Guess ill let her know and see how it goes. Thanks for the input.

[DivaVocals]

No. The way the internet and HTTP/HTTPS work is by downloading a copy of the content from the web server to the computer of the person viewing the website. The webpage (and content such as images) are then displayed on the computer the person is using to browse the internet. So anything you can publicly see in a web browser has been saved on the website visitors (customer's) computer (somewhere) and you cannot stop them from doing anything with the content.

However you can simply NOT display the full resolution, touched up, and non-watermarked image on the website. Your client can make the final image a virtual "downloadable" image and add a lower resolution, watermarked, and non-touched up image for the product. Worst case the customer has a low resolution image with a watermark (removing the watermark will be time consuming if the watermark is well placed / blended in)...

Yes it is an extra step for the client, but if they have access to PhotoShop or Gimp a custom watermark is relatively easy to add. If the Zen Cart installation includes IH4, you can configure IH4 to add a watermark (not as good as a custom blended watermark) and just tell your client to upload only low resolution versions of their images for the product page.

IH4's watermark feature works well if people do two things (which many sadly do not bother with)

1. Create a well made custom watermark image which WILL blend in without obscuring the view-ability of the image (requires a bit of experimentation)
2. Using the watermark placement settings so that the watermark will properly be placed in a manner that will make the image undesirable.

Combining this with just not using the hi-res download image as the product image are your best bets to prevent stealing.. this is after all what stock image sites like Fotalia, iStock Photo, and others do..

[afo]

Diva Vocals is correct. Check the Holzheimer's site (link below) to see it in action.

[bergernovelties]

You can get a free trail of a watermarking program that will let mark large groups of photos very easily. I tried it and was able do 6000 photos in about 30 minutes using it. All the product photos have our logo embedded as a watermark. I have attached a sample.
Check it out @ http://www.batchphoto.com/

[DivaVocals]

Diva Vocals is correct. Check the Holzheimer's site (link below) to see it in action.

and IH4's watermarking has the benefit of watermarking images on the fly, on the site (eliminating the need for external watermarking programs/sites).. You can also decide if you are going to watermark all image sizes or JUST the large and medium images only..

[lhungil]

and IH4's watermarking has the benefit of watermarking images on the fly, on the site (eliminating the need for external watermarking programs/sites).. You can also decide if you are going to watermark all image sizes or JUST the large and medium images only..

O.o, did not know one could selectively watermark based upon size in IH4. Very nice!

IH4 does make one's life a little simpler once installed and properly configured to fit one's needs (thus why I mentioned it early on).

[DivaVocals]

O.o, did not know one could selectively watermark based upon size in IH4. Very nice!

I agree!!! Yes from the admin you can enable watermarking for just one, two or all three sizes selectively.. I suggest watermarking only the medium and large as the small image is usually too small to be of use to an image thief anyway..
(just MHO of course..)

IH4 does make one's life a little simpler once installed and properly configured to fit one's needs (thus why I mentioned it early on).

Tim Kroger actually really did a NICE job of putting together a set of very useful image management features when he released IH4 (though admittedly, I personally am still NOT a fan of the very popular image hover).. There are MANY built-in features which most people do not use or even know about.. (like for example how you can specify the file type for each image size -- small=.gif, medium=.jpg, and large=.png) In the v4.x version of Image Handler I updated the readme document to include the details of all these neat features.. Before the v4.x update the explanation of these features was only found on Tim's old website..