Protecting Your Photos From Theft

The only secure solution to really protect your photos is not to post them on the internet at all. That however is not the best solution if you want to show your work to the world which can lead to potential sales. From recent experience, there is always going to be some idiot who thinks they are above the law when it comes to copyright infringement and image theft. Most countries protect your works automatically when they are created and when it becomes available on the internet. It is very important to always specify ownership of your images and to heavily watermark them with copyright, logos, etc.
Never upload the full resolutions of your photos on the internet. Always use a much smaller resolution of the original and stamp it heavily with a watermark. It is best to use a clear watermark where others can at least still view the image. No amount of coding for your website will prevent thieves from stealing your photos. Once it is posted it can be stolen. There are methods such as disable right click, print screen and so forth to deter image theft but it cannot be totally stopped. Low versions of your photos that are heavily watermarked is the best legal statement that the image belongs to you.
Another alternative is to sell your images on CD or DVD. This way you could have a registered owner with a unique key. However, there are still drawbacks to this because cds and dvds can be shared easily with others and ripped. This method could also be a slow down in sales because most people want their product for download immediately once they pay for it. This could be perhaps used as a backup selling source with a registered owners list so you know who has a copy of you photo disc. This would make it much easier to track illegal usage and distribution of your pictures.

The Difficult Task Of Getting Your Photo Site Noticed

There are many ways to cuts costs in setting up your own commercial website for selling photos. However, the task of trying to get your photo site ranked in the search engines can be daunting. A higher ranking in the search engines means more traffic. Traffic exchanges can be useful for the short term so do not hesitate to use them if you so desire. From experience, once you stop using traffic exchanges the visitor rate will drop if your site is very new. Submitting to free search engines and directories are useful but be aware that it could take months before your photo site is even listed. The reality is that it could take two or three years for a site to become fully developed on the internet unless your willing to pay for sometimes very expensive advertising. This is not always feasible for someone on a tight budget.


Good backlinks are hard to get unless you pay for them. There are a few free sites for artists that will help you get a little higher on the search engines. One such site is artistsites.org. Another one that can aid the “starving artist” is Artist-Listing.com. The latter has a free membership as well as a paid memberships that allow you to showcase more of your work than the free version. There are also some free hosting sites that rank well in the search engines that can help get you to the top of the pages quicker. Trading links is fine as long as the link is related somehow to the subject of your site. There are also social networking sites.


In the long run it will take time and patience to get your photo site noticed if you do not really want to pay for the extra expenses of promoting your site.

Clustershot Saved

The photo site Clustershot will not be closing down.  Thanks to a successful auction, the new owners will keep Clustershot alive.  This is good news for its members and other artists and photographers who use this site.  Way to go! 

Unfortunately, I would hoped that Clustershot would return but it did not happen. It was sad to see it go because it was such a good starting point for those who wanted to sell photos online.

Bye Bye Clustershot

I have mentioned previously about Clustershot.  Clustershot is a website where one could sell and buy photos.  The uniqueness of this site is that there were no heavy restrictions on submitted photos such as the more well know stock photography sites.  This was an advantage for those trying to break into the business of selling their art and photos for a little extra income. 
Clustershot has acknowledged on their website that they will be closing down sometime in February 2011.  This is such a shame because it is a nicely layed out and attractive website.  Being a member myself, I will have to find alternatives for selling my artwork and photos.  I found one such site, FotoMoto.  Perhaps I will give these guys a try.  It is free to join and they only take a small percentage of your earnings.  There is really nothing to lose here.  There is also FotoTime which has a free and paid account.
Clustershot has also mentioned that they will take a reasonable offer for the site.  So maybe, there is still some hope that Clustershot will have a saviour.  We will just have to wait and see.   

Traffic Exchange Just For Photographers

Regular traffic exchanges can bring much traffic to your new photography website but most of the traffic will mainly click on by without even hardly giving a second look to your site. That is because most traffic exchange users are seeking traffic themselves as quickly as possible to their own websites. At first when I pursued this method it seemed promising when my traffic stats went up considerably however still no sales. Even when setting my traffic to specific targeting it still did little.
So I googled some more for other methods to help promote my photography site. Yes, I have submitted to the search engines and free web directories. Then I stumbled up on something that really caught my eye. It is a new traffic exchange just for photography. I thought to myself that this was a neat idea because it is an exchange focused just for photos. Pretty neat, hey! It is also free to join too which is an added bonus. So for all you aspiring photographers just check out the link at the top of this blog. There is nothing to lose except letting it pass on by.

Payment Options

In the previous entry I had mentioned Clustershot as being an inexpensive alternative to publishing artwork and photos. Another is a payment option that one can also have their own online photo store for selling their work. However, this route is much more expensive as I have found out. You must have a hosting service with a dedicated ip address in order to accept payment transactions. This is an additional cost in conjunction with your web hosting site. You also must possess a SSL security certificate. This piece of encrypted code protects your customers data and any financial transactions made through your website. It boils down to this. It is not that cut and dry to setup your own website in order to sell your photos and artwork.

Nothing is impossible though. It just takes time, money and patience. Be prepared to spend many long hours of unpaid work to make it happen. As of now I have established my own personal website but I still need a few more additions before I can actually run my own gallery to sell my work from it. It is a case of either make it or break it. There are many hosting sites that have reasonable rates. Host Papa is such a site as is Go Daddy. Go Daddy also has one of the better values for obtaining an SSL security certificate.

Hopefully, this article will be of some help to those who wish to pursue selling their photography work on their own site.