Protecting Images - Disabling the right mouse button

[Nathan G.]

Can anybody give me any information on how to go about disabling the right hand mouse button? I am creating a photography website and I'd like to make it as difficult as possible for people to save the images without using watermarks which I feel will make the products look less desirable.

Thank you, Nathan

[Mike Hughes]

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...le+right+click

Mike

[pixelhaus]

Remember that disabling right click only works on mice with a right click so it doesn't apply to the majority of macs. Do make sure you have a healthy copyright notice that is accessible from all sections.

[Nathan G.]

Thank you olderscot. That was much easier then I was expecting. Also thank you pixelhaus. I didn't realise macs do not have a right hand mouse button, I will make sure my copyright notice is more accessible.

Nathan

[fergusw]

Hi Nathan,
Disabling right click is not a way to stop people accessing images from your website. If it is displayed in their browser then it has already been downloaded to their computer.
Alternatively a quick look at the source code will allow anyone to identify the image "src" and download it at their leisure.

Watermarks can, if done correctly, actually lend themselves to a form of branding on your products
e.g iStockPhoto

You should also make sure that if you are selling Hi-Res images then all images on your website are optimised and are 72 dpi.

For what it's worth you could also look at making the image on screen out of several smaller images i.e. break the main image up into little parts. This is more HTML work on your part, however it also means a lot more work on the part of the person wishing to "steal" the image.

Hope this helps.

[Nathan G.]

Thats very interesting Fergus, I might have another look at watermarks but I am still not overly keen on the idea.

I like the idea of breaking up the images into many small images. I don't suppose you know of a website that already does this that I could look at?

Thank you, Nathan

[fergusw]

Something like this perhaps?

All I did here was take Fireworks and use it's slice functionality. It took care of the HTML and images for me.

[leehack]

I agree with Fergus, disabling the right click is a no-no and a thing of the past. It has already been downloaded for one and a simple print screen can grab the image with no hassle anyway.

A watermark is a much better idea, especially if you develop your own brand of watermark, it then becomes your kind of trademark. I recently added a new section to a site where the client had taken all of the photos manually, to protect them, they were watermarked - http://www.birminghammodelcentre.co....derSpares.html. That is probably a bit brash for how you would like it, but it gives the idea.

[RuralWeb]

You can also create a new image layout that places a transparent image over the product image which is used as a background. This will leave the right click enabled but an attempt to copy the image will result in the transparent image being copied instead.

[Nathan G.]

Something like this perhaps?

All I did here was take Fireworks and use it's slice functionality. It took care of the HTML and images for me.

I quite like this idea, However I have a lot of images that would need this done so I was wondering how long it took you to do with the image on your main page?

You can also create a new image layout that places a transparent image over the product image which is used as a background. This will leave the right click enabled but an attempt to copy the image will result in the transparent image being copied instead.

How easy is this to do in actinic for a person with currently still rather limited knowledge?

[RuralWeb]

How easy is this to do in actinic for a person with currently still rather limited knowledge

? An unaswerable question

[jont]

A good old fashioned "print screen" will still grab the image with the transparent image over the top. It's a pain but watermarking does offer the best protection but still not perfect. The best protection is to have no images at all - if someone can see your images they can be lifted - but then you won't sell any products.

[fergusw]

I quite like this idea, However I have a lot of images that would need this done so I was wondering how long it took you to do with the image on your main page?

It took 5 minutes in Fireworks, however integrating this into Actinic, especially if you had many, many products, would not be user friendly and to be honest may well be more hassle than its worth for large volumes of products in Actinic. The main reason is that it takes you away from the simple 1 product image model that Actinic uses.

I would look to batch process a watermark onto your existing images using Photoshop, Fireworks or another Graphics package.