The line between copyright infringement and innocent online scrapbooking or hotlinking is hazy for most of us mortals without a legal background. At ourlocality we take care to avoid flagrant abuses and will counsel those of you that have received a snippy email from an aggrieved photographer. They will know that it ain’t worth it, i.e. borrowing other’s work without permission is not a good idea.
Always check whether you are free to use the image, or ask the maker/author. A way around this is to be original (if you have not time to take your images and your design skills are weak). A suitably cropped screenshot of a web page to include additional text as well as the image etc, rather than using the image alone, could be a way to overcome obvious objections. But the question is how do you do it?
We are fans of Picasa, and if you are using the latest version Picasa 3, you’ll find that if you press the Prt Sc Key (top right hand of the keyboard) when Picasa is open, it will automatically pop it into your folder. You can work on it, give it a twist, blow it out, instagram-style it or whatever takes your fancy. Remember to export it at a reduced size, ready for uploading to your website or blog.
Did you know that most browsers have a full screen option, which means you can remove screen clutter from your screen grab. Alternatively use the Snipper Tool in Windows 7 or Grab on a Mac.
