Keeping DXF file photos safe

[DCMW]

I am new to this forum and new to cnc plasma cutting. I am currently in the process of starting my own business from it. I want to create a website of prints that people can see and choose from to buy metal art. How can I post these DXF file photos to my website and or social media, like Facebook, and not have to worry about people "copying" or stealing the DXF file photo? Thank you in advance for any advice.

[Bobkovacs]

Watermarks help somewhat, but if someone really wants to copy your work, they can do it fairly easily with pretty much any illustration software.

[Capstone]

I am new to this forum and new to cnc plasma cutting. I am currently in the process of starting my own business from it. I want to create a website of prints that people can see and choose from to buy metal art. How can I post these DXF file photos to my website and or social media, like Facebook, and not have to worry about people "copying" or stealing the DXF file photo? Thank you in advance for any advice.

I only post FINISHED pieces of Metal widely on social media and make sure the pics include either a brand watermark and are shot at angles that prevent easy digital copying. I never post designs that I could do because frankly a simple targeted google image search on almost any subject will return thousands of clean silhouettes all day so who needs a catalog to show a customer?

I think 90% of my customers come to me with an "idea" and let me create the design. That's my value. I then present these ideas for their consideration privately and I'm sure to include lots of watermarking or hide certain edges in what I send. Here's a sample of the proofs I'll send. Notice that there's plenty of descriptors instead of detail in the image itself. It give the customer what they want but not an entirely finished piece to take elswhere

Even though someone with enough time could copy this, why would they if the cost to copy this for most skilled people outweighs the ability to compete with the original creators price? That's why I send the customer a small jpg image.

[DCMW]

Thank you Capstone, I appreciate the advice!

[Gamelord]

Add in a good sized fuzzy drop shadow to your pictures and take the picture at a slight angle. This will make it exceptionally difficult for someone to get a decent trace without doing a lot of work. If they can fix that then they can copy anything, even an obstructive watermark.

[motoguy]

Add in a good sized fuzzy drop shadow to your pictures and take the picture at a slight angle. This will make it exceptionally difficult for someone to get a decent trace without doing a lot of work. If they can fix that then they can copy anything, even an obstructive watermark.

Can you explain what is meant by "fuzzy drop shadow"?

[Gamelord]

Depending on your software, you should be able to take any image and add a drop shadow on it. To do so in Corel, export your DXF out as a .png file with no background, then open photopaint. In Photopaint, open a new blank document without a background. Then open the saved .png file. Then copy the .png file and paste into your new document. Then select your drop shadow icon (should be on the left side, it shares the place as the transparency tool). Once selected you can then edit the drop shadow with the icons/menu bar on top. Select "Small Glow" from the pull down menu, then select the color (usually black because that is what matches your actual dxf drawing), then select the amount of shadow and fade with the last couple icons. Then combine the entire image with the background and export the new image as .JPG (or whatever format you wish). Below is an extreme example with a blue colored drop shadow. Blue would be easy to edit out but a grey or black that matches the actual DXF would just continue the edges of the DXF out to fuzzy-land and be very difficult to edit out without re-drawing the entire thing.

Another thing would be to put a gradient as a background that utilizes the same colors as your drawing. I have added that image below as well.

[rdj357]

It also helps to resize the proof image pretty small. That makes any attempted trace come out very grainy. I tried and was able to get a pretty decent trace on the gray gradient ram scene because it is so large. Had it been half that size it would have been impossible.

[metalman42]

I was able to make a good copy from the glow image, so the best thing to do is make a watermark the same color as image and weld together so watermark alters the original image...

[Gamelord]

I can copy or hand draw anything, been doing it long enough that if you don't want me to have a copy of it, you probably best not post it online anywhere I can find it. As I said above, people who know how to trace or hand draw will be able to steal your drawing no matter what you do to them. Best you can do is make them work at it hard enough that it would probably be easier for them to draw it from scratch. With the gradient and the drop shadow, I purposely made those so it was obvious what I added. With the drop shadow, I would never send to a customer with the blue fuzz and not that exaggerated. But it would be in the same faded grey/black tones to make it nearly impossible to simply trace the outside edges without work. It wouldn't be that large either, just subtle enough so that those that only knew how to do basic copies would get a gawd awful trace from it. The gradient would not just be the background but the image itself, so trying to do a copy would break it into several different sections of grey scale instead of one simple image. Still, someone that knows how can copy it pretty easily faster than you could probably imagine.

[Scratch]

I wouldn't worry about it. We need to learn how to trace images to cut our stuff. People bring in a blurry picture of their dead dog and want us to copy it so we do it. We get pretty good at it after a while... So if someone sees something on the net that they like bad enough, they're gonna copy it. Maybe throw a watermark on there but know that it nots gonna do much good.

If you don't want it copied, don't post it on the web.

[Old Iron]

"If you don't want it copied, don't post it on the web."
This is the best advice!!!!!!!!!!!!!