A Word About Copyright and Image Theft

All images appearing in the NPN galleries and forums are the copyrighted work of the respective photographers and are presented here for your viewing pleasure. Please do not copy, download or use these images for any other purpose without the express written consent of the photographer!

Protecting Your Images from Theft

The reality of the Internet makes it impossible to prevent the unauthorized copying and use of any photo posted on a web site. However, there are certain steps you can take to render your photos of as little value as possible to anyone taking them without your permission;

• Your copyright mark should be placed on all images, as shown in the lower right corner of the image to the right. The © (copyright) symbol can be created in most programs by holding down the Alt key and entering 0169 on the numeric keypad. Also consider placing contact information (such as your website URL) and a prominent water mark on your images. The water mark can be done as a semi-transparent layer in most image editing programs, such as Adobe’s Photoshop.
• Keep your images as small as practical. The NPN posting guidelines allow images up to 720 pixels in width. Most of the time, an image sized to 400 to 500 pixels will be more than adequate for display on in our forums and galleries. The image to the right is 310 pixels by 210 pixels in size.
• Use aggressive “compression” when saving your image for uploading. The smaller the JPEG file size, the less information the file contains and the more difficult it becomes to use it for any other purpose. The image to the right has a file size of only 14.5 KB.
• If you have valuable images that you cannot put at risk, do not post them here or on any other web site.

  By posting your photos on NPN or on any other web site, there is no guarantee that your images will not be taken and used without your knowledge. However, as outlined above, you can take steps to ensure that image file you have placed on the Internet will have minimal value to those who wish to illegally profit from it.

  Now that we’ve covered that, relax and enjoy your participation in the NPN galleries and forums!