Website 101:
I'm a visual artist, can people steal the images I put on a website?

In a word, yes.

Any image that you see on a website is actually downloaded to your computer. So if your site visitor can see your images, they can keep them for their own.

So, is this something you should worry about?

In a word, maybe.

There are ways to make it harder for someone to get your images. And if you only post small images then it will be hard for anyone to use your images for anything productive.

When a user sees an image they like on your website, if it is coded like usual, they can right click on it and save it to their hard drive to a place they can easily access. There are scripts your web designer can add to the page which will prevent right clicking and saving from working on your site.

Basically, your images will still be on their hard drive, because that's the only way they could see them, but they will be hard to find. Most users don't know how to access images in their temporary internet files folder...

The best thing to do is only put up small images that are not too useful to anyone else. Images on a web page are usually posted at 72 pixels per inch. Images at this resolution look fine on a page. Images at 72 pixels per inch don't look so great printed. So their use is limited.