PHP Photo Album script

[elliott]

First I adore this script it is one of the better scripts in the archive IMHO.

One small change which would make a huge difference is if there was someone way that you could put a transparent image over the top of each image as a way of making it harder for people to steal the images being display. One of the major reasons I like this script is that you can batch change all the filenames as often as you like to deter hotlinking.

I already know about:

Adding Watermarks to the gallery images.
Disabling the right click.
That the image is stored in the browser cache.
That FF has an extension for web designers which shows all images on a page then you can right click and save them.
I know about applying the meta tag to block IE's floating toolbar: <META HTTP-EQUIV="imagetoolbar" CONTENT="no">
I know about the undocumented IMG SCR tag GALLERYIMG="no"

One of my other tricks is to put all the gallery images into a folder of their own and then include it in the robots.txt file as a disallowed directory, put a blank index.html file in the directory preventing an easy list, or use a redirect script to send them straight back to the site's normal index page or the 404 error page. You can also drop a .htaccess file in the directory with IndexIgnore * in it and then the directory will appear empty.

I know you'll never completely stop people from misusing your images but I work on the theory that if you make it hard enough you can stop all but the most determined and with any luck they will simply go and look somewhere easier.

[ddadmin]

Hmm interesting idea about putting a transparent gif over the actual images, but that would make the images themselves not clickable (to enlarge, for example). I think just implementing the existing techniques you mentioned above is suffice- anyone who is able to overcome those are determined enough to overcome any other technique, such as the transparent gif one.

[elliott]

Oh there is a paticular extension in FF that if used a certain way can bypass pretty much every method of protecting images (ddadmin if you want to know more pm me, for obvious reasons I don't want to make the details public!)... ultimately the only way real way is watermarking images and putting copyright stuff in the exif page.

As I said before

I know you'll never completely stop people from misusing your images but I work on the theory that if you make it hard enough you can stop all but the most determined and with any luck they will simply go and look somewhere easier.

[ddadmin]

Elliott, I'm pretty sure I know the FF extension you're talking about; in fact, there are a few that accomplish the same thing.

Regarding what you said, I think if you implemented the things you cited, such as no right click, changing file names periodically, that along is suffice. Anything more like overlaying a transparent gif won't do much to counteract those people that are already savvy enough to overcome your other "defenses", and is counter productive anyway in the way it limits the gallery's features.

[Gemma]

I was actually searching through the topics about this script in regard to another query I had about it, but thought this topic was helpful in another way!

Am I right in thinking that you mean you can add a watermark to images without actually having to manually do it in Photoshop or something? If there is a script to do it, what is it? It seems I have wasted many a hour adding copyrights to my photos if I've got the right end of the stick!

And without adding yet another topic to the forums about this script, I'll ask my other question in here... I don't want the images to link to anything - I've got it so only one image appears and it's full size, so clicking it is useless, and leads to another way for people to pinch the image. What bit in the script would I need to change to turn this off? I've already change this bit:

//By default, each image hyperlinks to itself.
//However, if you wish them to link to larger versions of themselves
//Specify the directory in which the larger images are located
//The file names of these large images should mirror those of the original
//Enter a blank string ("") to disable this option
var targetlinkdir=""

Which I thought would stop it becoming a link, but it just links to the original image path.

One more question - is it possible to add a 'next' & 'previous' link at the bottom. For example, I've just been testing it out and clicked on one number, then forgot which number I'd gotton to So for example, I'd want:
"< 123456 >"

with "<" & ">" linking to the previous and next images, and 123456 etc working as usual...