Protecting images on your website

[ChinaMark]

Hello,
Could anyone give me some advice about the best way to protect images on my website? So far I've read about using a transparent GIF image on top of the image so that if people right-click and save, then all they download is the transparency, but then I read that to get round that you can just save the whole web page instead and get the image that way! I've also read about using Java Script to stop people right-clicking, but that doesn't seem too fool-proof either.

I don't suppose there's a simple, effective way is there?

Thanks in advance,
Mark

[Doug Nelson]

There's no foolproof way to protect your images on your website. All can be beaten by a motivated individual. Use .htaccess to prevent bandwidth stealing, and watermark your important images. All the rest will just cause problems, turn people off, or challenge them to beat your system.

[skydog]

I agree with Doug. You should post examples of your work and only those shots that you are willing for others to down load. You could also lower the quality of the file for webuse only and like Doug said you could include a slightly transparent watermark. I have found many of my shots on personal myspace and facebook pages that were copied from my personal site.

[Doug Nelson]

You can use hundreds of teeny transparent watermarks.

[ChinaMark]

Thank you all for replying so quickly. I think keeping the images small is the way to go and Doug, those teeny transparent watermarks look excellent! I will definitely follow that tutorial ....they are very unobtrusive yet very effective.

Thank you!