After publishing 50 web magazines, 4 pdf magazines, and surfing probably hundreds of portfolios, I’m still wondering why people get afraid of putting their work online.

I definitely understand that you want to protect your work and copyrights. And you should. But I don’t understand that you won’t allow other people to bookmark, blog, or share  your work with others. It’s because of blogs and bookmarking services that we can explore and discover so many great artists!

So even though I’m not a big expert, let me give you some advice on how you can exploit the web as a great (free) marketing tool, but still have your stuff protected from unauthorized usage. First thing, if you don’t have the opportunity to host your own website, don’t worry, there are a lot of other, free ways to share your work. Of course, your own website gives you full control on how your work is displayed, but a lot of communities are also trying hard to watch over your work.

Some tips:

1. Use Flickr: which is great for anything really. As long as you can take a picture or screenshot of your work, you can post it here. Flickr also gives you the possibility to restrict others from downloading your photos. Well, that’s not completely true of course. But let me just say, it’s a lot harder for most people. :)
2. Use deviantART: it’s not my favourite website to browse (it has some usability issues in my opinion), but this community is packed with tons of artists in illustration, painting, photography, graphic design, and more. DeviantART also let you add a watermark to your images.
3. There are other services and communities, but I haven’t explored them all. Always check how they will handle your stuff.
4. If you upload images of your work, try not to upload high resolution images. But still keep them big enough for other people to share them. I would say 600 by 800 pixels is a good start. It’s a good resolution for screen, but crappy for print. Don’t use too small images either. Screen resolutions get bigger (or at least they should), so you still want your image to stand out on any webpage.
5. One golden rule on the web (which applies to everything you do on the web), never share or upload anything you don’t want a lot people to see. If you have something that is restricted or very sensitive to share, don’t put it online. It’s that simple. People take the web way too much for granted. You are never sure what your (so called) friends will do with your stuff (even if it’s just visible to them).
6. It might be a good idea to add some sort of watermark yourself. I really like websites like Ffffound, WeHeartIt, Tumblr, … They make sharing images and links very easy, but I hate the fact that people don’t take the time to include their source (or at least credit the copyright owner). Adding your name onto your images will help tracking down the artist, and will make my job a lot easier. :)

Keep in mind that:

1. Flash website are not enough to prevent people from downloading images, music or whatever. There are tools (even standard in Safari) to monitor network activity easily.
2. You can always download any picture of the web. If you can’t find the source, you can do a print screen.
3. Some creeps like pretending to be you. They will copy your images (even edit them) and put them online as their own. It sucks, but it happens. When it does, complain about it, report it, or track them down and kick them in the nuts (if they have any).

I might have some more tips for you later, but let’s just stick with these ones for now. If you like other people to enjoy your work, don’t hesitate to share it online. The web is a great and beautiful place. That may sound corny, but it’s true. So let us keep it that way. ;)