Protected Internet Photos

Would you like to know how to add pictures from websites to your picture collection? Usually it's easy. Right-click the picture, choose "Save picture as..." and save the picture to your Documents/Pictures folder or wherever you want it.

But some websites won't let you do that. They employ netfoolery to disable the right-click function so you can't grab their stuff. Their proprietors think that works, and they even pay online services to provide the protection.

My websites used to have such protection measures built in. I implemented them myself because I can. Then I realized that no matter what I did, some smartass like me could get around it. So, I removed the thinly veiled protection.

What it comes down to, is if you can display it in pixels on my screen it's mine if I want it. Kind of like stealing satellite signals. If you bombard my house with electrons, and I am smart enough to decipher their meanings, I can and might.

So, here's how to circumvent picture protection on a PC, fellow libertarians.

1. Open the webpage that has the picture you want.
2. Make sure you have the highest resolution copy of the picture fully in view on your screen.
3. In the upper right corner of your keyboard, find the key that says, "Print Scr/Sys Rq" or something similar.
4. Hold down the Shift key and press that key. You have just copied an image of the entire screen into your computer's clipboard.
5. Close the webpage.
6. Open Start/Accessories/Paint
7. Choose Edit/Paste. The Paint accessory now has an image of the webpage's screen.
8. Use Paint's rectangle tool to define a rectangle around the picture part of the screen image.
9. Choose Edit/Copy
10. Choose File/New. You can discard the previous file, the one with the entire screen in it.
11. Choose Edit/Paste

There it is, the picture you aren't supposed to have as a Paint document. Now save it into your Documents/Pictures folder.

My good deed for the day.