I absolutely love to take nature photography. I feel like my work is good enough to sell, and I would like to give it a try on ebay. I don't want anyone to steal my images from there though so I am wondering what the best way is to copyright my material. I've seen people put a word over the image so people won't want to try to take the image off the site to use as their own. Also, If someone does buy one of my pics, how do I copyright the actual photograph?

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All you have to do is just go to the photo editing software and place a copyright on the bottom of the picture. Adn then in windows looking at the file, you go to file, properties, and select read only. Thats it.

To legally copyright an image, I send my images in batches to the U.S. Copyright office. They take about 6 weeks to get a form back to you, and it's registered as yours. I send them on a disc. there are forms to be filled out which can be downloaded. I also place my name across my images online, and I embed a watermark in Photoshop. When I mail the disc, I also do a "poor man's copyright" ( I mail the images along with a letter stating all images are mine, dated.. to myself registered mail. It's dated on the envelope, I never open it, and I have dated proof that as of 2/7/07 the images were mine.) I also place a stamp across the rear of the image when I sell it stating it's been copywritten, all rights reserved, etc, mty name..

Photos are automatically copyright by the photographyer-but that doesn't mean that people won't steal it. If you're putting it on ebay I would put watermarks on it, either tile them or at least have one in the center. If you have Photoshop or similar software you can add a text layer and type out "Copyright whoever" or "Proof" or something along those lines. Personally I like to make it white with a black drop shadow and then lower the opacity so it's not too obvious but they won't be able to steal it. You can also add a signature to the photo you're going to print-use different fonts, sizes, position, etc