I actually know how to go into my cpanel and password protect a directory within my site so that others can't see. However, my images can no longer be displayed if they are used on other sites. So how do I make sure that my directories are protected but the images can still show up when I use them on other sites?
Move the images outside of the protected directory and change all your image tags. Right now you have something like siteurl/protected/images. Just move them to siteurl/images. Then change your tags from images/filename to siteurl/images/filename.
Assuming I read your directions right, doesn't this just allow people to have access to the redirected url path that you just suggested?
I am not sure, perhaps you have to make the access of directory as forbidden for listing. That way no can list what is there in the directory, but can view the content/images.. if they are linked to other pages.
Don't password protect the /images/ directory. Putting a blank index.htm file in the /images/ folder will do. You can also use this script in the index.htm page of yourdomain.com/images/ folder to redirect users from /images/ folder to main page. Hope this helps
To the images yes. A blank index file or any page you want to create and name index.html placed in the images folder will prevent them from browsing the directory. You can't use "hot link protection" because you said you wanted to use the images in forums and stuff.