How to copy-protect a photo distribution CD?

There is no such software. If they can see a still image on their screen, then they can copy the file. Instead you can ensure the images they have will not print well (small size or watermark).

Create a PS Action that resizes 200x300 pixels (or smaller) and then saves a low quality jpeg of it in another directory. Now apply this Action to the (already backed up right?) full size images as a batch. Now you should have a selection they can choose from that will make poor quality 4x6 prints. Or give them a larger size (400x600 or 600x900) and use an action to slap a big ugly "Copyright 2004 Mirtos Anastasiades" in the middle of each shot at 50% opacity or something similar.

my $0.02,

Sean

Am not referring to physically copu protect the CD but to secure the content (jpg files) from been copied and/or printed. Several applications i.e. jpg2exe, etc may do this by packing the entire album jpgs into one single exe file. I was wondering which is yours recommented / prefered professional solution for contact sheet/ sample albums for selection by customer. Some facilities I am looking for are "SELECT" button during the slide show and selection list extraction to be emailed to me for ordering. Any suggestions? BTW, am using MAC OS X.

jpg2exe is a hurdle, not a solution. Again, if they can see it on the screen, they can copy/ print/whatever. If you hand them the image, they can do what they choose to with it. Hopefully your customer will do the right thing, but the reality is that once the image leaves your hands it's out in the wild. There's no way to prevent a determined person from copying what you give them.

I can't remember which program it was (it may have been software that came with a DVD burner), but Mirtos is correct - there are ways to embed the images and presentation software into one single executable file (I'm not sure about the inclusion of their file names though).

Since there are no individual image files anywhere on the CD (the collective images are turned into a single file like a video), this does in fact prevent anyone from accessing any particular image unless they use some sort of screen capture during the presentation.

Try checking out DVD burning software.

As someone already mentioned, this is a hurdle, not a solution (there are none). Macromedia Flash? It is hackable, but only by someone who really knows what he's doing. Plus you have the added bonus of being able to make a nice presentation layout that will play across platforms. Or you can make the flash file and export to a movie file (MPG or AVI). Again, hackable, but not worth the effort, IMHO.

Rich

I don't see why you would want the full res pics on the cd. Most people use a screen size of 1024x768 or at most 1280x1024. At most I'd include 800x600 size pics at a jpeg quality of 7 or 8? As has been suggested, use a batch action to throw on a copyright with your name on all the images. There are many ways to make an exe slide show file, check Google for a wide variety of software some of which may be available as trial programs. Use "exe slide show" as a search term.

I built a viewer in Macromedia Director that requires the user to hold down the mouse button in order to view a larger version of the thumbnail (when they let go of the mouse button, the image closes). This is to complicate screen cap efforts. I'm sure there is a workaround, but for the average user hopefully not worth the bother.

I think that Adobe Acrobat will do this. You may want to check on the Adobe web site.

You'll need to purchase the full version of Acrobat to do this.

I think there's a way to do some of this on a Mac if you're using system 10. In system 10 one can print to a PDF file instead of paper output. There are some security choices to be made at that time I think. I might be confusing these choices with Photoshop though...Ha, check out saving to PDF in photoshop.

It would probably be easier and safer to upload the pics to a file for viewing online with a watermark on them and a not for distribution statement that addresses electronic distribution. Also post your copyright statement. A small say 200x300 pixel jpeg image will have enough detail to view and order but not enough to print. There are plenty of examples of working photography businesses doing this. Whatever you do, don't burn anything to a cd unless it's a low rez image in a small size with a watermark.