Security for Photo archive

JT
Posted By
James_Turley
Oct 8, 2006
Views
229
Replies
5
Status
Closed
James Turley – 11:28am Oct 8, 2006 Pacific

I have Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 and Photoshop CS2. I have a large library of images in PSD format. My company prints hi res scientific images on large format printers.

I want outsource some or the printing and shipping. So…I’d like to create a PDF library archive DVD that is secured so that only one person can open an image, and that image can only be printed. I want to avoid the case where the DVD (or a single image) can be copied and printed elsewhere, by someone else.

So…I guess I need a Digital Signature for my self and one for each contractor. Then I save the PSD Photoshop files as PDF files and Certify/Add my signature?? I’m unclear of the workflow here.

What steps do I then need to follow to "attach" be sure only my contractor can open and print the files, while making copies of the DVD library useless?

Sure could use some help. Should I go to a third party trusted provider.

I guess this is different from DigiMark…which real time can track image use. Maybe I need that too.

Help!

James Turley
Sky Image Lab
Related Tags
archive security

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L
LenHewitt
Oct 8, 2006
James,

With Acrobat professional you can set a password to open the document, and you can limit its use to disallow modification but to allow printing.

The security is set (and can only be changed by) using a different master password to the one set for opening the document.
JT
James_Turley
Oct 8, 2006
The trouble with Passwords, is that if I give my library to a contractor…and he or she moves on, gets mad, or whatever, there no way to invalidate the password. The contractor can copy the PDFs, give it to others, and just pass along the password. Right?

With encryption and certificates, I should be able to revoke certifcates. Thus revoked, she nor anyone else will ever be able to open the PDFs. Do I have this right?

James
Y
YrbkMgr
Oct 9, 2006
James,

There is no foolproof method, period. The problem, in general with what you’re trying to accomplish is that the more effort you put into "security", the more challenging you make it for the user whilst not protecting yourself from the true thief.

In general, once you float a digital file, there’s nothing you can do to prevent security from being breached, only more difficult.

Len’s answer is generally a happy medium – I don’t know anything about your work or the proprietary nature of the images, but if you feel that you must revolke a cert, or that your user will pass along a password, it kind of begs the question of why you would give it to that person in the first place.

Also one must ask oneself if one is being too controlling – that’s decided by the nature of your product/image/whatever. Look at adobe, they need to create an elaborate mechanism to prevent piracy in part, because of the millions of users. On the other hand, 10 users is far more controllable (traceable). <shrug>

just my two cents.
L
LenHewitt
Oct 9, 2006
James,

For further information on Acrobat capabilities you would be better off posting in the appropriate Acrobat forum.

This is rather off-topic for the Photoshop forum,
GD
george_dingwall
Oct 9, 2006
Hi James,

A word of caution on Digimark and other similar organisations.

With organisations like Digimark, you are only protected as long as you have a paid up subscription. If you don’t pay up whatever they decide to charge, all of the images you have protected will lose that protection as soon a Digimark closes your account.

A person from a Photoshop forum I subscribe to has recently ended her replationship with Digimark after they pushed up the cost by a large percentage. She was shocked to find that all of the images she had paid to have protected over the years, were now no longer protected.

If this is the road you want to go down, you need to know the protection is not permanent, and you have little control over what the organisation can charge you once they have you hooked.

Bye for now.

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