Posting Photos of Kids on the Web

As a very proud mother of 2 very beautiful boys (not that I'm biased or anything ), I post a lot of photos of my kids on my blog.  I do, however, get quite a few people asking me whether it's safe to put those photos on the web.

In my opinion, it's no safer than taking a film to the photo shop to have developed!  And everyone does that at some stage in their lives.  OK, the likelihood of the photos being manipulated in the digital environment is greater, but still, there's always been that risk.

There are a few guidelines that I've come across in the last few years, which I do try and adhere to when posting photos of kids, just in case…

1.  Get permission from the parents of children before putting their photo on your blog.

2.  If you don't get permission from a parent, make sure that the other kids in the photo are barely recognizable. There's a little girl behind my son in this photo (who wasn't wearing a swimming costume), and even though she was slightly blurred in the other shots, I chose this photo to post on my blog because she's completely hidden here.

3.  If there's "too much skin" and you're worried about it, put a watermark across that part of the photo. If the watermark is done properly, it'll be very very difficult for anyone to restore the photo and manipulate it, but it won't detract from the photo itself.

4.  Another way to slightly disguise the photos, is to use Photoshop to adjust the colour tones and add filters. It makes the photos quite unattractive for people to further manipulate, because it's just too much hassle.

5.  Oh, but those Photoshop filters and actions are a great way to hide slight blurring … which is not difficult considering how fast kids move!

6.  If you're posting via a site like Flickr, set the copyright settings on your photos so that it's difficult to download.

7.  And lastly, reduce the quality of the photo and make the photo quite small before uploading it.  By doing that, it's very difficult for someone to get a usable large photo once downloaded.

If you have any other guidelines that you've come across, please add them in the comments!

Jeanette is a South African working mother of 2 very busy boys. She's been taking a photograph every day since June 2007 and you can watch her skills improve at Photography by Jeanette.