in light of recent events, i've decided i'd try to get some general tips about preventing art theft (not dealing with it. k-9-dog has covered some of that here.). if you've got something to add / something i've missed please feel free to post below! i don't think anyone else has done tips specifically on how to prevent theft? if so i have not seen it sorry edcfgvr.
before i give you some juicy info, i'd like to state that, unless you have specifically asked someone to "steal" your art for drama, it is not your fault, no matter how precautious you are. if there is a will, there is a way. even the thickest of watermarks will not stop someone determined. please take that from someone (me) who took an entire class on photoshopping.
- watermark! the most common tip you'll hear, because it is one of the most effective and practical preventions.
- typically, more opaque (harder to see through) = harder to remove; if its been placed on lines you can't see the lines to trace!
- intersect line art; it's harder to duplicate your lines than flat colour.
- place it on gradients! gradients are a pain to make look like they haven't been edited.
- place it over multiple colours! it takes more time to meticulously fix patterning than it does to slap one colour overtop your watermark.
- repeating watermarks! much more effective than a small, non-repeating watermark. very time consuming, if not impossible, to fully remove. the smaller a repeating watermark is, the harder it is to remove. repeating watermarks are great, but they make it harder to see your art.
- large watermarks can work similarly to repeating ones, though if it covers the entire fullbody without breaking (gaps revealing the original image), it can be passed off as the natural colourations.
- small images. if you're posting somewhere not on cs, you typically get to choose the size of the image you upload. small images are harder to use as references / adopts / etc. they are also harder to edit, as all the information is compressed and the pixels start to change their colours; it can be a slight change or a major one, but typically it means a quick attempt at covering a watermark over a single flat colour area now looks you just drew with a normal brush over a gradient.
- low-resolution / compressed images. similar to 'small images,' but the image isn't smaller (though the file size is). the pixels have just been compressed the same way as if it had been shrunk. i personally use optimizilla for compressing.
- cropped images. one of the hardest to "fix." if others never have access to the full image, it becomes very hard or impossible to attempt to replicate. very time consuming to fix, as you would typically have to redraw the rest yourself. a good way to prove you are the rightful owner, as only you have the original full size image. a thief cannot snag the image for quick profit.
additionally:
- use prevention methods even when posting on websites you can't right click and save images on! you may not think you can download an image off instagram, however someone with even a basic understanding of html can dig through the site's code through 'inspect element' to retrieve the image.
- be wary when streaming! i have heard of a case where the thief had taken the wip or full image (i cant remember which, but it could go either way--) and finished / uploaded it before the original artist. this can be difficult to prove, especially if you have lost the original file (NOT the image! the .kra / .psd / etc.).
- if you can, don't make the entire image the thumbnail on TH! especially for references, fullbodies, and small adopts. see the 'cropped image' tip above.
