6 Ways: How to Protect Photos from Being Copied Offline/Online

Copying or theft is a serious threat to image owners, especially those whose livelihoods depend on images, such as painters, artists, photographers, graphic designers, website owners, etc. If you don't want your photos copied or stolen, here are 6 ways you can use to protect your photos online and offline: you can password protect and lock photos offline using photo lock software, add a Copyright Notice to photos, add watermark to photos, copyright photos, upload Low-resolution pictures and disable Right-click to protect images from being copied online.

1. Password Protect Photos with Photo Lock Software Offline

When your important photos are not protected in any way, your image files can easily be stolen, deleted, copied or lost. How to protect pictures offline? IUWEsoft Password Protect Folder Pro is the best picture lock software. You can quickly lock, hide and disguise pictures or picture folders. It protects photos, videos or other data on local and external disks using a military-grade encryption system.

3 Steps to Password Protect, Lock and Unlock Photos Offline

Step 1: Download, install and launch the best photo lock software on your computer. Click "Lock File/Folder", and then click "Open for Lock" button to select photo or image folder from computer or external drive.

Step 2: Select photo lock type (Lock photo without Hidden or Lock photo with Hidden), input and confirm password and then click Lock button.

Step 3: Decrypt locked photos or image folders. Select locked picture or photo folder in the main interface and then click "Unlock" button, input password to unlock photos.

2. Add a Copyright Notice to Protect Photos Online

You can add a copyright notice to prevent misappropriation when publishing your images on your website or social media channels. This method acts as a deterrent and doesn't actually prevent theft or copying of the image; it just tells others not to use the image without permission. Adding a copyright notice to your photos or documents is easy. Just type the © mark followed by your name or company name. You can use any photo editor tool to add a copyright notice to your photos before uploading them online.

3. Add Watermark to Protect Photos from Being Copied Online

Adding watermarks to photos is a common way to prevent photos from being copied online. Obviously this doesn't stop photo theft and some professional watermark removal tools can easily remove the watermark logo from the image. To add watermarks to images, you can use any photo editor software. Additionally, Mac users already have a built-in markup toolbar to watermark their photos.

4. Copyright Photos to Protect Images Online

You can keep your photos as your intellectual property and no one can use them without your permission. To get a copyright notice, you must check your local and international copyright laws. For example, in the US, when you take an image, you automatically own the copyright to it. However, if you are commissioned to take the photo, the copyright belongs to the person who paid for the photo. So, copyrighting your images takes a long time and specialized technical jargon. The steps to apply for copyright on a photo online are simple: go to copyright.gov and click Register Copyright, upload the photo you want to copyright, fill out the completed form and pay a fee to have your photo copyrighted.

5. Upload Low-resolution Images to Protect Photos Online

Low-resolution images have little appeal to most photo thieves because they have little value to print or share. However, low-resolution images can help photo owners upload files to website quickly and help them improve page and image opening speeds. Also, low-resolution images look good on small screen devices.

6. Disable Right-click to Protect Photos from Being Copied Offline/Online

If you disable right-click options on websites, you can protect your online photos from non-tech thieves. If you have a WordPress site, you can install plug-in to disable right-click options, such as the No Right Click Images plug-in. However, this method still has some drawbacks, such as technical users can easily download images using other methods, non-technical users can simply take screenshots of pictures.