Photos on a Web site

[mbalensiefer]

I am getting a custom Web gallery drawn up for me for my photos. In it, my programmer has asked if I need to prevent others' hotlinking.

My thoughts:
1) If another Webmaster links to my image, I think that this is alright because since I am watermarked I will get free advertising...but ONLY if the hotlink brings up my whole Web gallery (I can program it to do this)

2) Do I want someone to also be able to link to just one image without bringing up my whole Web gallery--because that will take up my bandwidth? This may allow someone to post one of my images in their blog but it will rest on my server; costing me bandwidth. I am still watermarked.

 I cannot make up my mind whether hotlinking via either of the two ways above is a bad idea.
 What do you think? What are the pros and cons of either?

Mike

[feppe]

Probably not worth the hassle for little or no benefit. If somebody really wants to use your image which can't be (easily) hotlinked, they'll just copy-paste to their own site - and you won't even know it. If you allow hotlinking you will see where the requests are coming from.

You can always disable hotlinking for an image if it takes too much bw.

[bpsphoto]

I agree with feppe. The trouble people go through to attempt to fully protect their photos online is remarkable. You'll lose more potential customers/viewers that it's worth.

The best thing is to go with small files - I do 800 or 1000 pixels on the long axis at about 60% quality, yielding file sizes around 100-200 kb. You can get a usable 4x6 out of this, but nothing larger.

[scrinch]

 I also use smaller images,  600 pixels on the long side and also a light intensity watermark that I apply in Photoshop.