Thursday, February 4, 2010

Protect your Pics

Nothing is safe on the Internet. Nothing. Anything you write (or type if you want to get technical) or post to your blog can easily be taken by others. As a blogging mom, the thought of someone taking pictures of my child and posting it to their blog as their own child terrifies and sickens me. But it happens. Your pictures are not safe on the Internet. Yes, the things you post to your blog are yours. And you are protected by law should anyone steal your content. But is it guaranteed someone won't steal them? no. of course not. And are you prepared to have a legal battle should someone take them? nope, not me! I'm going to share a few things I have done to my blog to make it a little harder should someone want to steal my pictures. First thing I did was to disable the right click function. What is that, you ask? Well, the right-click function makes sure that the person who right-clicks on your photo won't be prompted to save the picture to their computer. To do this follow this tutorial here. Now will it make absolutely sure that no one will take your picture? No, not necessarily. But it's going to make it a whole heck of a lot harder for them if they try to. Another thing you can do is to add text or a watermark to your pictures. Don't put your name on it, or a cute little character, or a design. MAKE SURE it has your blog address on it. Right in the middle, or over a good amount of the picture. Why? If someone is reading blogs and they come across YOUR photo with YOUR watermark on it with YOUR blog address, it makes it a whole lot easier for that person to notify you that YOUR picture was taken. Pretty cool, huh?
So how do you add a watermark/text? If you have photoshop, simply use the text tool, choose your font, size, etc and type out your text. Tip: make sure you have the original image saved in another place because photoshop will embed the text into your image.
If you don't have photoshop, or other photo editing software, you can use flickr. (This is what I do, even though I have photoshop) You can use flickr or another web-based photo hosting website to upload your pictures to. On most of these websites you can edit your pictures and add the text there.
I also thought about making my blog private. Which is a great and wonderful idea if only your family and friends have your blog address and keep it quiet. Since so many of my family and friends know my blog address and I'm too lazy to start another blog, I decided against it. But honestly, if someone wants to get to private content they can. It's actually really simple. (and I don't plan on sharing how to do that). And to those of my friends/family whose blogs are private, don't worry. Your blog address is safe with me!
So there you have it, a quick little post on how to keep your content and pictures a little safer. Though nothing is guaranteed. Do what you can to protect your family and yourself from those crazies out there!
If you have any other ideas on safety besides "don't post pics in the first place" then let me know! I'd love to get any thoughts and ideas, dear readers.

2 comments:

  1. It is kind of scary... there are some crazy people out there. Good ideas!! Thanks for sharing!

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  2. Love the ideas. I need to start doing that on my blog but I've been too lazy to do it so far. Now you've got me scared of all of the crazies so I'll be doing the watermarks asap!

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