5 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 23.6 ms ] thread
> Consider watermarking all of your photos

This part isn't such an awesome idea.

Why not, specifically? I can imagine technical and aesthetic reasons. What are your objections?
It's self-defeating because it degrades the quality of your site, it's self-defeating because it blocks some user behaviors for discussing your site, and it doesn't work. Rule of thumb: if you don't want something shared, don't put it on the internet.

There are a few reasonable exceptions. Stock photo sites should probably use watermarks and reduced-size images. Unobtrusively signing images sometimes also makes sense (not watermarking) as it can serve branding interests.

But trying to block browser interactions is just annoying. Don't do that, it's a great big sin against usability that violates the rule of least surprise. If it's over-done, it may keep me from easily opening links in a new tab. It also makes it hard to open images in a new tab if I'm trying to get a better look at them on a limited display.