Screen saver creator program that works on most computers?

[Joanna Carter]

Joanna - how do you make any profit letting people copy images from your computer?

Shooting an event and marketing a commercial screensaver of it involves more than letting them have access to my computer. They buy the screensaver with the images on it when they visit the location that sells it.

As Frank and Brian have said, there really is no simple way to "protect" images, even within a program.

I make a living out of being a software writer and consultant and, believe me, if someone wants to get at content, they will. With Windows programs, the files would have to be shipped along with the executable file; with OS X, the files would be included in the application bundle, which is, in reality, only a specially marked folder. Either way, unless you are prepared to encode the images and have them decoded at runtime, anyone with the least technical knowhow will be able to easily get at the images.

System screensavers are not just another program, they written to tightly integrate into the OS; unless you are prepared to either use a milti-platform development environment or write one version per platform, you are not going to get a "one size fits all" solution.

Finally, I really can't see such a product as being anywhere near as marketable these days as you might think. unless you have a particular style that people are clamouring to get their hands on, there are just oo many public domain pictures available to make it worth someone's money just to have an image that will only appear when you are not actively using your computer.

Sorry

[Dakotah Jackson]

So I should tell the museums that want us to copy their artwork and exhibits and make screensavers it is wasting their time?

[Brian C. Miller]

There is a sizeable difference between writing a specialized custom screen saver (API calls, blah blah blah, actually writing software) and using a program which simply sets up the Windows or Mac built-in screen saver. The screen saver included with an OS simply does a slide show based on images in a folder. This isn't difficult, a few clicks and you're done, yadda yadda yadda. No protection there, at all.

I'm guessing that you haven't done much of a web search. I tried "windows screen saver copyrighted images" and I got:
http://www.efiresoft.com/ and http://www.mindworkshop.com/scspro.html which might be what you are after. It isn't a hopeless task, but it isn't something that has a big demand.

[Joanna Carter]

There is a sizeable difference between writing a specialized custom screen saver (API calls, blah blah blah, actually writing software) and using a program which simply sets up the Windows or Mac built-in screen saver. The screen saver included with an OS simply does a slide show based on images in a folder. This isn't difficult, a few clicks and you're done, yadda yadda yadda. No protection there, at all.

I'm guessing that you haven't done much of a web search. I tried "windows screen saver copyrighted images" and I got:
http://www.efiresoft.com/ and http://www.mindworkshop.com/scspro.html which might be what you are after. It isn't a hopeless task, but it isn't something that has a big demand.

Brian, Dakotah asked for something that worked on "most, if not all" computers; the links you cite are for software that only runs on Windows. Nowadays, the Mac market is ever growing and often favoured by those interested in the "artistic" side of life.

Dakotah, yes, I would say they may well be wasting their time. Regardless of whether the software exists to run on multiple platforms, the matter remains of how "hackable" it is to those who want to use the images outside of the program. Don't forget, if the image looks good enough for the screensaver, as Brian says, people can simply hit Print Screen and they have a copy of the image.

And then, you are still not catering for the growing tablet computer market. Some people are now using a mobile device like an iPad instead of a laptop and, unless you are willing to get yet another version of the program written for the iPad, Android, Blackberry, etc, and you are also going to have to make the program available for download; which can then cause problems with the amout of data in images exceeding the download limits for some mobile devices.

Unfortunately, using CDs/DVDs for distribution is now starting to become as outdated as the old floppy disks have already become. Museums would be missing out on the market if they don't also make such a multi-platform program available for download.

Having said that, try iScreensaver Designer, which seems to cater for some versions of Windows and Mac. Or try Googling for "cross platform screen saver protected".

[Dakotah Jackson]

One interesting thing here is that one of the museums we put together a batch of images on CD, Lower quality jpegs, has sold over 1400 copies in the past two months.
Yes, some will take and copy and whatever but many buy what the visitors and museum store has available just as they are still buying post cards, note cards and prints of the place and exhibits.

[mandoman7]

One interesting thing here is that one of the museums we put together a batch of images on CD, Lower quality jpegs, has sold over 1400 copies in the past two months.
Yes, some will take and copy and whatever but many buy what the visitors and museum store has available just as they are still buying post cards, note cards and prints of the place and exhibits.

Working for you is people's laziness along with a desire to support the museum. People do spend money on stuff at those places if they've had an interesting experience. I think you have a good idea in spite of the nay-sayers. In the music world, people can download almost any songs or see them on youtube, yet when they are at gigs they buy the CD's like crazy if they like the performer. It becomes a way of confirming their experience.

[fecaleagle]

Google suggests that iScreensaver Designer is really the only cross-platform software suite available for producing screensavers. Reviews seem to be hit or miss, but this is a niche market you're looking to occupy, so I'd give the 30-day trial a shot. So long as you're putting together a (traditional) slideshow screensaver and not a video, I think this will be able to meet your clients' needs. http://iscreensaver.com/