Modern web browsers offer multiple ways for users to copy images from the internet. But many photographers want to protect their images from being copied. The nature of a website is to download images into the visitor's browser for viewing, but ProPhoto offers several options to deter visitors from easily grabbing your images. Find these image protection options in the WordPress content module settings under "Content Styles > Image Protection".
As stated in this options area, be aware that these image protection options can not be applied in the ProPhoto Visual Builder, since you have to be able to click/drag elements around :) So to test the image protection functionality, you will have to view the actual front end of the site. Be aware that ProPhoto's image protection options will only be applied to images inserted directly into posts and pages. They can not be applied to gallery images, grid thumbnails or images in graphic modules. The reason for this is that often click functionality is needed for gallery, grid and graphic module images. So if image protection was applied to those images, they couldn't be clickable and the desired functionality would be lost.
No protection
This setting retains the default WordPress behavior:
- allow images to be right-clicked, most browsers offer a "Save As..." option for images.
- allow images to be dragged with the mouse, making it possible to drag images directly onto the computer desktop.
Disable right-click (and dragging)
Restricts right-click on images, preventing visitors from using the browser "Save As..." for images.
Disable left and right clicks
Restricts any type of clicks on images and prevents dragging and dropping of images. Some plugins may require left-clicking on images, so if you are having image-related plugin problems, you might try using Disable right-click above, instead. Any external links added to images will still work, even with left clicks disabled. Left clicks can be re-enabled on an image by image basis by adding a custom image CSS class to specific images.
Disable clicks and add watermark
Same as Disable left and right click above, but will also automatically use a watermarked copy of your image on your site. Watermarking will brand your images with your own graphic so that any visitor who tries using a screen capture will still have your branding applied. When this setting is chosen, you can upload a watermark graphic, set alignment, and change opacity of the watermark on your photos. Check out our watermark guide for more details.
Server-side Protection: Robots.txt
This is an advanced topic, but we want you to know about it: you can prevent Google Images from indexing your photos by using a robots.txt file on your web server. By applying a rule like this, Google Images will totally skip indexing photos for your entire site: User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Disallow: / You can add this manually, or you can use a plugin for WordPress. Since we find it's more cumbersome to manually edit and add a robots.txt file to your server, a plugin is probably the way to go. Search for a plugin in the "Plugins" > "Add New" area of your system, or research online in the WordPress Plugin Directory. And if you need to remove images that are ALREADY indexed in Google Images, you can use the Remove URLs tool that Google provides.
Server-side Protection: Hotlink Defense
This is also an advanced topic, but it's good to know about: websites can hotlink your images directly by simply using the URL address of images from your site. This takes some know-how to do, so the average visitor may not know how to find your image URLs. But there are lots of tools to block hotlinking, since it involves adding code to a special .htaccess file on your web server. We recommend using a WordPress plugin to achieve this, so search for a hotlink defense plugin in your "Plugins" > "Add New" area, or research online in the WordPress Plugin Directory. Be sure to test thoroughly to make sure the plugin you choose doesn't cause unexpected problems.
Please note, none of these methods are foolproof, only strong deterrents. Someone with enough computer/internet savvy could get into the source code and track down the original image (without the watermark) on your server. So, if you don’t want any way for your images to be stolen, you probably will want to watermark them before uploading, or not post them at all. This protection though does prevent a vast majority of your visitors from being able to access your images.
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