Total Art Soul - for artists

Hi Mike

Using the 'print screen' function on your keyboard will automatically remove/will not capture the EXIF data from the image anyway, so it would immediately be an 'orphaned' image, but surely the copyright still belongs to the author/creator?

For us, there has to be a balance, having very high resolution images is unnecessary as the images from the gallery are not for sale, also we don't want the images to be 'stolen', while on the other hand we want the gallery to look good, to show off the members works as best as we can. Anyway, the EXIF data embedding function has been restored now, which should go some way towards protecting our members.

Regarding quality, the gallery software does have limitations, images are resized to fit the browser screen, not to a fixed size, though maximum resolution is set to 1000 pixels, width or height, whichever is greater. Because of this (javascript) function, some definition may be lost.

Anyway, we will try to do what is best for our members overall, and we appreciate the input.

Joe

PS. There was a documentary recently on tv about the classical pianist Joyce Hatto, which was fascinating and shows what can happen with illegal copying of intellectual material, and how it can be uncovered, in this case by Brian Ventura on his iPod. See the wiki article here.

I do need to apologize. After further investigation, it appears the EXIF is intact in the file. I found several images from other people that display everything, including camera model and all that. For some reason, my system is not showing the data adequately. Again, I apologize.

The concern is not to prevent people from pinching the image, it is to a) allow people to know where it came from and allow them to contact me and b) to maintain a record of protection of the copyright, should some action need to be taken. Lets say a magazine editor sees my stuff and wants to talk to me. If the copyright data is missing, I'm SOL.

And, there is a second layer of protection provided by the EXIF. It is illegal under DCMA to alter a copyrighted digital file without permission. Stripping EXIF without permission is a felony. That's in addition to the copyright penalties.

I use the 'save for web' function of PS which leaves behind only the copyright and contact information, not burdensome at all.

As for the sharpening thing: The images I used to test came out very 'crinkly.' I tried both a 400x533 and a 570x760 version and both were oversharpened.

A possible solution: allow an option to apply sharpening or not, as the person desires, or you might allow the system to skip the resizing if a person uploaded the correct output size to begin with.

Thanks for your attention.

Walt

Joe - admin wrote:
Hi Mike

Using the 'print screen' function on your keyboard will automatically remove/will not capture the EXIF data from the image anyway, so it would immediately be an 'orphaned' image, but surely the copyright still belongs to the author/creator?

Which is a good reason for not trying to prevent people downloading images
The copyright may still belong to the originator, but under US rules an orphan file can be used without permission or payment. If the originator finds out, they can claim a fee, but then the second part of US copyright law kicks in - if its not registered all you can claim is lost fees, not damages or attorney fees etc. The previous UK administration was planning to bring in similar legislation.
Anyway, the EXIF data embedding function has been restored now, which should go some way towards protecting our members.
Thanks for this

Regarding quality, the gallery software does have limitations, images are resized ... Because of this (javascript) function, some definition may be lost.

probably will be lost - a javascript function isn't going to do as good a job as the compiled functions in an image processor in a reasonable timeframe. Whether this matters depends on what you're expecting - I'd find this unacceptable for showcasing images to potential customers, but I don't use TAS for this (and I rewrote part of the gallery software I use on my sites so it didn't touch the files if they were the correct size to start with, and to do a better job if they had to be resized)
It is a much bigger issue on sites designed for sales, which sometimes do a poor job of resizing images for web display, overly compressing to keep bandwidth costs down, and oversharpening too.

I can appreciate your problems with this as photographers and I think Joe has addressed this now as much as he can. I have to add though that TAS is not a place to sell from, it's a community site. It's about sharing with other artists. For that reason I don't feel we have to concentrate so much on getting super excellent quality images. Sure, the site needs to look good and people want to see sharp images, but we're not printing these images. It's really just a showcase, a way to get your name out there.

Also, Walter, you mention that stripping out the xif data is a 'felony'. Would you know what the law was on this in Europe? Which laws would be applied if someone in Russia stripped the xif data and used your image? There is no global law on this.