Screenshots can’t be blocked
What happens: anyone looking at your page can take a screenshot or record their screen.
Why: once a picture is on someone’s screen, it belongs to their computer, not the website. No website, app or service can prevent this, whatever it claims.
What we do instead: large views carry an invisible watermark unique to that viewer, so a screenshot can be traced back to the visit it came from. Your site also only ever shows display-sized images, so a screenshot is never your full-resolution original.
Invisible watermarks can be removed
What happens: tracing doesn’t work on every copy.
Why: the watermark survives resizing, re-saving and small crops, but not:
- a whole-page screenshot (crop it to just the picture before tracing),
- a tiny thumbnail, or a copy that’s heavily edited, filtered or collaged,
- someone deliberately removing it. The watermarking technology is public, and so is a tool to remove it. Watermarks catch casual leaks, not determined ones.
Small gallery thumbnails aren’t watermarked at all, since they’re rarely worth leaking.
A technical person can get the real image from your site
What happens: someone with programming skills can write a script that pretends to be a visitor on your site and reassembles the image.
Why: any image your visitors can see, their browser can see, and so can a program that imitates a browser well enough. Domain locking makes this slow and fiddly and blocks it at scale; it isn’t a vault.
What we do: known bots and scraping tools are refused, requests are rate-limited, and anything that doesn’t behave like a real visitor gets the scrambled copy.
The plain image option is weaker
What happens: if you use the plain image or image link (for places that don’t allow scripts), a visitor on your own page can right-click and save the real image.
Why: without the script there is nothing to control what their browser does with the image.
What still works: other sites, image search, bots and direct links still get the scrambled copy. Use the script embed wherever your site allows it.
Platforms that copy your image onto their own servers
What happens: Etsy, Amazon, Instagram, Facebook and most marketplaces and social networks make their own copy of any image you upload to them.
Why: after they copy it, the image is served from their servers, not ours, so we’re no longer involved.
What to do: upload a lower-resolution or watermarked version to those platforms, and link to your own site for the full view.
Link previews on social media show the scrambled copy
What happens: when your page is shared on Facebook, X, LinkedIn or in a messaging app, the preview picture may appear scrambled.
Why: those previews are fetched by bots, and bots only get the scrambled copy.
What to do: set your page’s share image (og:image) to an unprotected picture, such as a
small or cropped version you’re happy to share.
Your images won’t appear in Google Images
What happens: protected images are kept out of image search.
Why: that’s the point: image search is one of the main ways images are copied. But it also means people can’t find your work through image search.
What to do: leave images you want found in search unprotected, and protect the ones that matter.
Visitors need JavaScript
What happens: a visitor with JavaScript turned off, or a very old browser, sees the scrambled copy.
Why: the real image is put together by a small script, and almost every browser runs scripts. The plain image option doesn’t need it.
Pages that hide where visitors come from
What happens: a page set to send no referrer information (Referrer-Policy: no-referrer)
shows the scrambled copy with the plain image option.
Why: the plain image checks which page it’s on using that information. The script embed isn’t affected.
We can unscramble your images
What happens: our servers hold the key needed to show your real image on your sites.
Why: to show your real image to your visitors, the service has to be able to unscramble it. Your password protects the copies other people end up with, not your images from us. The key is stored encrypted, and we never store your original file.
Keep your own originals
What happens: a scrambled copy that someone has re-saved as JPEG or resized can no longer be unscrambled, even with your password.
Why: unscrambling needs the exact pixels. That’s fine for protection, but Pixel Sentinel isn’t a backup service. Keep your original files. You can always download full-size originals from your dashboard.
Your scramble password can’t be reset by email
What happens: if you forget your scramble password, we can’t send you a reset link.
Why: it’s what keys your images, not your sign-in. You can still download your originals from the dashboard, but you’ll need the current password to change it or to unscramble files offline. Keep it somewhere safe.
Changes take up to an hour to show everywhere
What happens: after you delete an image or change your banner, the old scrambled copy can still appear for up to an hour.
Why: browsers and our delivery network keep copies of scrambled images for an hour to keep your pages fast.
Traffic numbers are close, not exact
What happens: your traffic report may show fewer requests than you expect.
Why: browsers keep images for a while, so a visitor who reloads a page doesn’t always ask us again, and “Save image as” usually saves the copy the browser already has without asking us. Sites and networks are what browsers report. Networks are shortened on purpose (the last part of the address is dropped), so they point to a household, office or mobile provider rather than one device.
Your visitors’ privacy
To make screenshots traceable and show traffic, we record for each view the page, a shortened network address and the browser. It’s kept for up to 180 days. Mention this in your own website’s privacy policy.