Watermarking Your Photos

Many people are a little leery about putting images on the internet. There is so much theft with intellectual property. To give some peace of mind when placing a photo on the internet sometimes they will use a watermark on the photo. I don't usually do this. Yesterday in Elements class we went through doing this and setting up a brush so all you need to do from then on is click on the brush, adjust it for the size of your photo, and stamp it on.

Here are the instructions for Photoshop Elements:

Create a blank document (File>New>Blank File) in RGB mode choose a resolution (I set mine to 150). Select 'background' in the background contents pull down menu. Click OK.

Click on the foreground color in the left hand toolbox. Select a gray – click OK. Then click alt/backspace to fill the new, blank item with the gray color you just selected. Press “D” to set the foreground color to black. Press “T” to switch to the horizontal type tool (if your type tool is not set to horizontal, right click on the tool and then select horizontal version). Choose your font/size from the menus at the top of the window. For alignment – choose “center.”

Click the cursor on the background and while holding the alt key type 0169 to give you the copyright symbol. Remember if you are using a laptop you will need to use your function key and the number pad that is kind of hidden in the keyboard. The numbers across the top of the keyboard won't do this. For a trademark symbol you will type 0174. Press Enter to get to the next line to type your name or keep the whole mark just one line. If you need to adjust font size – highlight the name or symbol and use the menu at the top to change the font size.

Click the eye on the background layer in the layer palette to hide that layer. Go to your effects palette and from the drop-down menu choose “stylize.” Double click emboss. You can also get here from going to Filter>Stylize>Emboss. A window will ask if you want to simplify the type – click yes. Set the angle to 135, height to 3, and amount to 100%. In the layers palette – click on “lock transparent layers.” In filters choose Blur>Gaussian Blur – select 2 or 3 pixels. Back in the layers palette click on the drop down menu and change from normal to hard light.

To create the special brush tool – while the watermark is open, click on the brush tool then go to Edit>Define Brush. Give your brush a name. I gave mine "copyright" and I have one that is named "trademark." It will save as the last brush on the list that is open (I suggest “default”). Then when you wish to place the mark on a photo – open the photo – select the brush tool and select the brush you created and stamp it on the photo. Be sure to adjust the size of the brush to fit the photo.

As you can see from the photo -- I have stamped my mark all over this photo of my mother's cat. I even changed the color of the mark a couple times. I kind of like this look. I don't know that I will ever use it to mark photos -- but to know how and to have one like this for fun -- I like it.

I set up brushes for my name and for "The Barefoot Photographer" -- my name brush uses the copyright symbol and The Barefoot Photographer uses the registered trademark symbol. But think about it -- how fun to make a brush of any word (like "Christmas" or "Thank You") or any name (like your last name or kids' names to make creative notecards) and create a photo with that brush stamped all over and in different colors (like the one on the blog today). The way to change the color of the stamp is to click on the foreground color at the bottom of your tool bar. When the color selection window opens -- just pick the color you like best!