Do you embed metadata on all your images you post? You should, this is fast becoming an inportant and intergal part of copyright protection. Yes it can be easyly removed by bad people intent on stealing your image, but this falls under the section I previosly wrote about. Removal of copyright information is also a crime and removing metadata is just as bad as removing a watermark. Honest people will see the metadata and know to stay away from an image when it is offered.

Its simple to do in photoshop (easiest is to click file info), you can even set up a template and have it done in a batch process. Or with some programs it can even be part of your import process from card to computer automatically.

There are of course problems with it. For instance when using the 'save for web' option in photoshop instead of 'save as'....this will strip all metadata out of your image. Well there is a partial fix for this now, apperantly (I have not tried it yet) there is a patch/upgrade for CS3 (10.0.1) that among other things allows you to check a box that will make the 'save for web' function at least save the xmp metadata (an adobe standard) but does not do so still for the IPTC fields (an international standard read by all programs) So still stick to 'Save as' but the upgrade does do other things helpful.

Also I just learned from this article in the ASMP newsletter [link] that apparently myspace will automatically strip all metadata out of the image upon uploading, on the basis of privacy. May have to rethink my use of myspace....

Readin this I decided to run some tests on the dA images I uploaded. I have found that all but the original size image you see in full view do indeed strip out the metadata. I hope that this can be looked into here and corrected. Some of the other sizes are still usable and should have the info kept in.

Dont let this prevent you from using this tool, espically if you post images to your own website

Bottom line as with all things in image protection it can be defeated by assholes intent on stealing art but it is another tool that is simple to use and makes more people aware of your copyrights.

Put in at least your name, copyright and contact info so that it travels with your images.