Image must be published to be visible embedded?

I run a couple of sites on Drupal 5 where Image module does not behave as expected. On these sites I only ever use image nodes embedded within other nodes (stories, forum topics) using Image_assist.

On my own 4.7 site where I want to do this, I can leave image nodes unpublished that I want to hide from direct access, and they will display embedded just fine to all users. On the 5.n sites embedded unpublished images are invisible to guest users. They only display OK to logged-in users.

I can't see anything awry with the permissions and it makes no difference whether 'unpublished' images are assigned to a taxonomy term or not. The only workaround is to publish them and then they display OK embedded. But of course this also means they are accessible as image nodes, outside their intended context.

Is it me, or has this changed? What can I do to restore restricted direct access to images?

Thanks

Tony Sleep http://tonysleep.co.uk