Photo Security for the Clueless

Let me tell you, when I started this whole photo blog thing, I was in a bit over my head. I may be resourceful, but I am not most tech savvy person on the planet, and nothing can be more frustrating sometimes than struggling with the formatting of a blog. (I come in almost every other day and even question the design of my blog! but I digress...) The security of my images was a big concern to me. I've right-clicked myself in the past, I'll admit, and copied a few images for the sake of a school presentation or something... but the whole copying and printing of somebody else's images is nails on a chalkboard to me. I'm a teacher, too, so it's right up there with plagiarism and tying kittens to the railroad tracks. Blogger, as you may have already discovered, allows for a simple right click of your images and voila! you can save whatever you want, and at a pretty decent size, I might add. Big enough for a decent-ish print if you wanted. Or a re-posting to another site. Are you posting pictures of your family that you don't want random strangers saving to their hard-drives? YUCK. Think about it! (or don't...) I am just not down with having my photos out there for anyone to take, but neither was I on the up and up with keeping my images safe...

It took me a while, but I finally figured out how to thwart the copiers and savers of the world. And now, I'm a-gonna share that information with you. Yep. Big of me, I know. But I'm a giver. Here we go.

First of all, you need to add an html gadget to your blog. You can put it anywhere you like; it matters not. Don't give it a title or anything like that, and then it won't show up on your page. It'll be a little secret gadget, like an invisible force field ensuring the protection of your rights. Yes, your html gadget will stand for justice. Just paste this whole thing into the gadget box:

<script language=javascript>
<!-- http://www.spacegun.co.uk -->
    var message = "No Copying Please!";
    function rtclickcheck(keyp){ if (navigator.appName == "Netscape" && keyp.which == 3){    alert(message); return false; }
    if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE") != -1 && event.button == 2) {    alert(message);     return false; } }
    document.onmousedown = rtclickcheck;
</script>

What that does is prevent folks from right-clicking your images. It even pops up a message telling folks that they can't copy. Fun. (You can even customize the message with something more rude if you like, or with quotes from Gandhi, lines of poetry, Japanese kanji. Up to you.) But we're not done yet, because all people have to do is click on the image to open it in another window, and then they can copy or save. We need to prevent that, too.

So, now that you've added your html, you're going to go in to edit your post. Select (click on/grab) the picture you've added to your post. Remove the formatting on it. That would be the little icon in your editing menu that looks like a T with a red X next to it. What this does is allow you to change the web address your picture links to when people click on it. That option will now be available to you on the same bar that allows you to change the size of your image in the post. You can put in a whole new website if you like, or link the image to your e mail address. Want to confuse people? Link the image to your blog's web address. People will be running around in virtual circles. Either way, people can no longer steal your images.


Does this seem like a lot of work? It ain't. It really ain't, especially if you're posting things you sell, or images of your precious kids. Consider how much time goes into watermarking images or reducing their quality. Who wants a low-quality image on a photo blog? Not me, folks, not me. You want to show off your work, not cheapen it. No, forget watermarking. It's a waste of perfectly good computer space and a waste of your time. If you manage to follow my instructions, you're on your way to safe and secure photo posting.