How do you send photographs over the internet without allowing them to be printed?

Answer 1

I don't think it's possible. Any image displayed on a computer monitor can be captured and printed.

You've received suggestions regarding making the print a poor quality one, but I don't think it's possible to completely stop it from being printed.

I'm going to mention something else. Your question sort of hints that maybe you are asking how to stop people other than your intended reicipient from printing the pictures. If that is the case, encrypt them before sending, and supply your intended recipient with the appropriate password by phone or other means. There are many free encryption programs out there to do this. You don't need anything particularly robust. Just something that will allow the recipient to receive a self-decrypting file if they enter the password.

A program I use to do this is called Zero Footprint Crypt. It's free and fairly easy to use.

Answer 2

I'm assuming that you want to do this in order to protect your rights to your image.

There are a couple of options, including the watermark suggestion already made.

The easiest I've found is to start with a small print and save a COPY as a very low resolution JPEG image. The lower compression rates generally will provide very low quality prints.

The next suggestion is a little longer process. If you have Photoshop, Gimp or similar software that allows you to adjust the resolution of an image, you can lower it to the point where an image looks acceptable on a computer screen but prints horribly.
To do this:
--Start with a COPY of a small print: 5 x 7, 4 x 6 or 3 x 5.
--Starting at 72 dpi, lower the resolution in small increments, working down until you are just barely satisfied with the on-screen quality.
--Try printing the image, and chances are strong that it's going to be very poor quality.

Good luck!

Answer 3

You can put a watermark on them so when they are printed it will cover some of the image.
You can put them in PDF form, but that is hard if you don't know how to do that.
You can send them with a small resolution under 72 so when they are printed it will be a bad print.

That is just a few ideas.

Answer 4

There has to be some software. Some pictures cant be printed or saved on the hard drive. The only way I know how to not print them is to insert the picture in a PDF document where you can add or modify privileges to print or to copy the content. The problem is that there is another software that can copy any screen shot....

Answer 5

You can't. All you can do is watermark the picture so others will know that it is your property.There are lots of programs to do this.

Answer 6

By not sending them.