If at any time you have seen your photos being used by third parties, without the permission you will surely have realized how easily you can fall victim to the sad reality of our digital age. That's why a professional photographer, Anthony Morganti, decided to create and share one video outlining 3 basic ways to search and find your stolen photos online.
Morganti's video may not open up new ways and ideas for detecting stolen photos, but surely an overview of some basic methods that are especially useful if you are a beginner in the profession or if you are dealing with photo theft for the first time.
1. Google and Google Alerts
The first way is both simpler and enough enough to find them photos on-line. Search Google for yourself and your website. Better still, set Google to notify you by email whenever someone tells you.
This is a great way to keep track of reports and links to you, but it's also a good way to find websites where their owners "borrow" your photos without permission. In the video, Morganti shows you how to create notifications on Google and also advises you
what to do so your inbox does not flood with irrelevant alerts.
2. Reverse Image Search
The most widespread and perhaps the most useful free way to find your images on the internet is reverse image search, or reverse image search.
In the video, Morganti covers three different choices. You can search by image URL, upload your images one by one to Google image search, or you can right-click an image (only available in Chrome and Firefox) and select "Google Search for Image" .
3. Invisible watermarks
As a third solution Morgani suggests something a little more advanced and therefore expensive money. Using a paid service such as Digimarc, you can add the "invisible" watermark to your image. And we say "invisible" with quotation marks because capable thieves could detect it with Photoshop, but otherwise it is extremely difficult for the human eye to see. See for example the image below. Can you see the watermark? But it is there…
But what does the watermark do if it's invisible? Digimarc uses these invisible signs to find your images on the internet with their own particular reverse image search, creating a report that shows you where your photo has been shared with or without permission.
It is true that this is a paid service, but if you are a professional and you base your income and your survival on this job then watching your images and finding offenders is one way.
Of course there are other ways to find your stolen photos, but these three methods will cover you well enough without causing you to eat all of your time in front of a screen or to force your pictures to be covered in badly visible watermarks.
Watch the video below:
