| Tips to protect pictures online |
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| By Neerja Kukday 01 July 2009 | |
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Snap them, plug into a laptop and whisk them away online – simple isn’t it? Well, simple it might be, but unfortunately this simplicity is leading people into a false sense of security. People put pictures of themselves, friends and family online without adding any form of security to these personal snaps. As a result, it has become easy for online scammers to steal pictures and use them for personal gain. Take for example the case of Robert Frost from USA. A handsome racecar driver, Frost, found his pictures plastered across hundreds of fake identities on dating sites where scammers were using his face to lure women and steal their money. In a similar incident, another US-based couple was shocked to find their pictures on billboard adverts in the supermarkets at Prague. Funnily, these mishaps are easily avoidable; in fact just a few extra minutes and you can prevent your pictures being stolen online. Here are a few tips that can help: Digital Watermarking: The best way to fortify your images from theft or misuse on the internet is to use a Digital Watermark. Simply put, digital watermarking is a process of embedding some information into your image that cannot be erased with ease. A watermark normally is text that appears in your photo—name or similar information that identifies who owns the picture and discourages others from reusing it. The process might sound complex but thankfully there are easily accessible and simple-to-use programs that let you create neat watermarks on your pictures. Some professional examples of such applications include Adobe Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or Visual Watermark. But these normally cost a few thousand rupees. So if you’d rather not shell out money you can go for free programs such as WaterMarkTool (www.watermarktool.com), WaterMark.ws or WinWatermark (www.winwatermark.com). These apps will allow you to overlap your pictures with a transparent image with a text on it, so even if anyone tries to use your picture they won't be able to erase your name from the picture. Watermarks however come with a downside – they leave a mark on your pictures that can easily spoil your masterpieces. Copyrighting: So if you want invisible guards keeping your pictures secure then try adding copyrights to your pictures. There are a variety of tools that allow you to modify the metadata (EXIF) for your pictures. Microsoft’s Photo Tool for instance is one such tool that will let you generate a notice of copyright and embed it into your pictures metadata. This, however, can be a slightly confusing process, simply because it requires you to modify the core information of your picture. A better way of adding copyrights to your pictures is via your digicam itself. Not all cameras, though, have this option. Some higher end cameras such as the Nikon D50 do come with an inbuilt setting to add copyrights. So check your camera settings for an option to add a comment or copyright info to your pictures. If it does have the option, then simply add a permanent copyright info in your camera’s comment field so that all pictures you click will automatically be copyrighted. The good part about this process is that it will not visibly change your picture. On the downside this will not protect your pictures from small time criminals who will not be bothered about copyrights. Photosharing sites security alternatives: On the most basic level, you could use the security tools provided by photosharing websites such as Flickr, Picasaweb and Facebook. Simply go online and could check the security options by delving into the settings tabs. Here you will find options that let you limit people from viewing your photos or settings that let you decide who can download your snaps and who can’t. Facebook for example gives an option under ‘Album Privacy’ tab where you can monitor who can view every photo you upload. Flickr on the other hand will also allow you to block people from downloading your pictures by simply selecting the ‘Privacy and Permissions’ tab and clicking 'Who can download your stuff'. Resize pictures: Another simpler option to keep your pictures in check is to resize them in such a way that they become unusable to the picture thieves. Most of us normally end up uploading the full-sized versions of our pictures. This is actually counterproductive. Firstly, this will eat up more bandwidth while uploading and downloading your pictures, and secondly, this means Christmas for photo thieves! So it’s best to resize your pictures in such as way that you cut down the resolutions but keep the fun of the picture intact. The easiest way is to use a resizer that's built into Windows: Right-click the picture, pick 'Send to', 'Mail Recipient' and click on - Small or Medium  the Attach Files dialog box. Yet another way is to use photo editors such as Picasa. Simply open a picture in the tool and click on file option then ‘Save for Web’. Here you get an option to specify the file type, the specific pixel size and the amount of compression to use. Click the options and voila you have fun looking tiny pictures that will be difficult to misuse!
Use the above tools and methods and protect your work |
The best part of digital photography is the fact that you can share pictures with ease.
Comments (1)
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02 July 2009
Arul Horizon
very usefull tips. But real thieves can get away with water marks easily !
