overlaying gifs

to semi stop people stealing piccies.

[natty]

hi all,

there was a post on one of the forums the other day.. (i have searched but cant find it again) mentioning overlaying a transparent gif to stop peopple stealing images from your website.
now, i know that this doesnt really stop anyone who really wants the pictures, but its still worth a go i think.
that is, if it involves css to do so(or is nice and simple). i have looked on google and cant seem to find anything on this.

any help would be much appreciated

many thanks

nat

[birdbrain]

Hi there natty,

it is not too difficult to accomplish. ;)
Just position the two images absolutely, with
the transparent .gif having the higher z-index...

<style type="text/css">
<!--
#image,#blank {
position:absolute;
left:200px; /*change this values to suit*/
top:200px;  /*change this values to suit*/
width:200px; /*change this values to suit*/
}
#blank {
z-index:2;
}
//-->
</style>
<div id="blank"><img src="blank.gif" alt=""/></div>
<div id="image"><img src="your_image.jpg" alt=""/></div>

birdbrain

[natty]

hi bb,

tyvm - will impliment that shortly. will be adding a disclaimer about the images also.

would you say it was worth watermarking them, or somthing similar?

cheers,

nat

[birdbrain]

Hi there natty,

would you say it was worth watermarking
them, or somthing similar?

I am not really qualified to answer that. ;)

But it is possible that having your name and
address on your images would be a source
of Free advertising for you, in the event that
they happened to be lifted from your site.:)

birdbrain

[kaled]

You could put a copyright message in the main image but mask it out (with a section of the original) using the transparent overlay. Thus, the user would still see a perfect image.

...It's a lot of work though.

Kaled.

[rexrhino]

Unless you are watermarking your images, you should avoid this type of "image protection" that does absolutly nothing to protect your images.

I can't count the number of times that these type of things have prevented me from doing normal style browsing on a webpage. If your layers aren't perfectly lined up, it can cover a link and not allow me to click to another page. The transparent gif might not show up transparent.

Not to mention sites that do this just seem unprofessional.

If you want to protect your pictures, the only thing you can do it watermark them.

[leliphent]

you could always disable the right mouse click ... thats what I do....

I myself have been looking for a script that disables the view source

[Stormfx]

You wouldn't use the images on two separate layers that are absolutely positioned. You'd set the background image of the div or td you were putting the image into to that of the actual image and put the transparent image IN the div or td. This effectively disallows them from accessing the background image from the context menus. They are still able to view the image directly via view source. Or they can just grab the file from the browser's cache folder.

A thief is a thief and will do whatever it takes to get something they want. And they WILL get it. Don't waste your time trying to actively prevent thieves from taking images. Instead, use that time to make the images unusable to them. Watermark them, put your URL on them or something of the sort. Actually, the method mentioned about covering the watermark with another image to give the effect of a perfect image is a good idea. Quite onery, to be sure :)

-edit-
Don't disable the context menu, that ticks off people who browse with it :)

[dvd316]

use .htaccess to prevent hotlinking.

all disabling right click does is force the user to prt scrn and create the image in photoshop

[geekay]

My sites have a lot of images, but they aren't worth the trouble of protecting for copyright, only for bandwidth theft, so I don't use digital watermarking.

But I made a test with a jpeg in my Photoshop with Digimarc. Then I just opened the watermarked image in another ordinary application and saved it. To my disappointment the Digimarc was gone.

[MWpro]

you could always disable the right mouse click ... thats what I do....

I myself have been looking for a script that disables the view source

That is probably one of the worst and most annoying things you can do, imo. And plus, it will not stop anyone from stealing anything -- it will just annoy your visitors.

[Gusgsm]

Wouldn't Flash be a sensible thing to use in this case?

[Stormfx]

Heh, Flash would work for that. /nod

Of course, I'm one of those people who refuse to visit sites that are composed mostly of flash :) I find it annoying :)

"Oops! Flash site! *alt F4*"

:p

[leliphent]

I agree flash would be the best method, depending on the images...
for me i do photo gallaries... and I am looking into building a flash template for them....

The right mouse click disable has worked wonders for me.... slowing down the hotlinking.

as for the stealing of the images.... they all have a water mark on them... so no stress there, just trying to slow them down...