Image size on the web to prevent unwanted use

[Bullfrog]

+1 with PeterAit.  Why would anyone bother stealing images on with your site, with the likes of Flickr, or a simple search on Google images?  Most folks are looking to spruce up their personal pages, desktop, or iPhones. The only way to stop it is to not post the image to begin with.

I've worked in Advertising for over a decade.  Anyone worth suing for real money due to copyright infringement already has a legal department and company policies in place to prevent it.  Violating such rules will get you fired.  Even when our sales-reps or outside employees pull those stunts for their work, we catch it, scold them and buy something from Corbis.  It's easier, we find the right image and in the correct resolution that fits the job, (or they had me shoot it).

From a technical standpoint, I still use 250px images due to faster page loads, and can have everything of a given subject in one screen for the over-caffeinated ADHD viewer too see in twenty seconds or less.  I only know this because as a buyer I would never put up with slow pages and massive images.  Even with today's bandwidth.

-Keep Shooting

You make good points - main one being the people that can be sued for damages are in corporations.  These are not the people I worry about.

Damage to reputation comes in many forms - and as another posted, I 've met one other artist who found their images on another website - with another person claiming they were there's. 

Anyway its perhaps something we cannot ever control and just like the music business (free downloads and distribution), its a cost of doing business.

[louoates]

Image size has little to do with illegal web use. Just a bit of decent up-resing will do for most web thievery. Thefts for printing images are more difficult with small sizes but can still be done. I was so dismayed with the illegal use (and crappy post processing) of one of my images as a CD cover I offered to edit my own image decently for their use for $20. I guess that was too steep a price because they ignored my offer. (East European country-so not much recourse there.)  So my only consolation is having a mildly amusing theft story.

[EduPerez]

Image size has little to do with illegal web use. Just a bit of decent up-resing will do for most web thievery. Thefts for printing images are more difficult with small sizes but can still be done. I was so dismayed with the illegal use (and crappy post processing) of one of my images as a CD cover I offered to edit my own image decently for their use for $20. I guess that was too steep a price because they ignored my offer. (East European country-so not much recourse there.)  So my only consolation is having a mildly amusing theft story.

I recently visited a framing shop, and they also had some framed prints for sale. The had a series of canvases with images of different rocks on a beach, that had some weird processing to them... until I realized the "processing" I was seeing was just the result of up-resizing a highly compressed JPEG file; I guess they where selling oversized thumbnails.

[louoates]

Some frame shops handle prints for artists who may be responsible for the sub-quality printing. Lots of that going around nowadays. Or maybe it was a poor attempt to have something artsy-fartsy different.

[kaelaria]

Real simple.  If you don't want it stolen, the correct size is 0.  Period.

[philbaum]

I just did a little up-resolution test with Lightroom.  I picked a Flickr picture (not mine in case my registration affected how easy it was to "borrow" something).  The picture had no copyright or watermark on it.  The picture was of a dragonfly with max dimension of 440 pixels.  I resized it to an 8x10" at 360ppi.  At that amount of resizing (8.2X), the resulting image was noticeably soft and not something i would want to print.

So i went back to the same Flickr site and noticed that I could click on an enlarged size that provided a 1064 pixel max dimension.  I borrowed that image and resized it to an 8x10 at 360ppi.  Resized the maximum dimension was 3600 pixels or 3.6X the original size.  The resulting image at was clear and sharp and suitable for printing.  (To complete the test, i deleted the two image sizes i had borrowed :-))

I have one of those "proof" watermarks all the way across my website images and its way ugly.  I think the way i'll go is to limit the size of the shown images to 500 or less pixels and perhaps put a small watermark in the corner.

Yes, i know, watermarks can often be removed with a little work, but all i have to do is make it more difficult than the majority of flickr accounts, and thieves will tend to go there instead :-) 

[SecondFocus]

I had a 72 ppi resolution image, probably around 300k jpg, 960 pixels on the long side horizontal, cropped vertical and then used for a full page magazine ad. Their ad guy had found it online and said "if it's on the internet it is fair game". The company came to realize the error of their ways and did settle with me... quickly. But it just goes to show you that nothing really useful online is really safe.

And yes it had my logo on it but when they cropped it, logo gone. And more amazing was that it is was originally from a medium size roll scan from a 35mm negative of one stop pushed Tri-X. Great photo though.

I have now found that it has been copied again, but horizontal this time, and printed at maybe 4 or 5 feet wide and hanging in a gym in Serbia.

[Rob C]

I had a 72 ppi resolution image, probably around 300k jpg, 960 pixels on the long side horizontal, cropped vertical and then used for a full page magazine ad. Their ad guy had found it online and said "if it's on the internet it is fair game". The company came to realize the error of their ways and did settle with me... quickly. But it just goes to show you that nothing really useful online is really safe.

And yes it had my logo on it but when they cropped it, logo gone. And more amazing was that it is was originally from a medium size roll scan from a 35mm negative of one stop pushed Tri-X. Great photo though.

I have now found that it has been copied again, but horizontal this time, and printed at maybe 4 or 5 feet wide and hanging in a gym in Serbia.

Maybe getting ripped off is a form of fame? Without the royalties.

;-)

Rob C