This is one in a series of tutorials called Starting Out.  Feel free to browse the whole series!

So, before I started this whole photography thang, I thought that when someone got married and then posted their photos online with a giant sign that said, “Jo and Frank’s Photography” across the middle that they were infringing upon copyright and doing something terrible!  Those images are protected!   And that big sign across the middle is telling you you’re wrong!

NOT SO.

Now that I’m on the other side of it, I see how wonderful the watermark- the giant sign- is and how we photographers HOPE AND PRAY that they’ll be sent and posted all over the internet with our lovely little advertisement all over them.

So, this is a session about watermarking- what, why, and how to.

Let’s start with what.  What is a watermark?  A watermark is something that you stick on your images that tells who took them.  I have them on every individual photo that I post here- the little pikkuarkki.com banner at the bottom.

I used to have a different one:

But then I switched to my banner with my web address for the following reasons:

1.   I felt like it was too much- too bold for my photo style.  I changed focus as a photographer and my watermark reflected that.

2.  If someone saw the photo, I wanted them to know where they could see more.  ”Little Ark” doesn’t give any information about who I am.  If someone Googled “Little Ark” they wouldn’t come up with my company in the first one hundred pages.  pikkuarkki.com, however is pretty clear- they know exactly how to find me.

The second reason ties in with the “why” of watermarking.  WHY should you do it?  Why spend the extra time taking that extra step resizing and labeling your photos?

You do it for the following reasons:

1.  The same reason Guess puts “Guess” on every single thing they make.  They’re branding it.  When you buy a Coach purse, for instance, you may feel cool, but you’ve basically paid 300 dollars to be a walking advertisement.  Albeit, a super chic, well accessorized advertisement.  :)  But when I do a photo session, I allow my clients to right click, copy, and digitally share the watermarked images.  And I don’t just let them, I REALLY REALLY REALLY want them to.  I want them to post a whole album of how cute they are and how great their family looks.  And then I want all their FB friends to be totally jealous and beat down my door to schedule their own session.  I can’t pay for advertising, so my watermark is the best bet.

2.  It stops people from ripping you off.  I don’t necessarily think that anyone is going to steal any of my images and call them their own.  In fact, I HIGHLY HIGHLY doubt that anyone would.  But Jasmine Star?  Jessica Claire?  Becker?  Their images stand a chance at being stolen.  So, putting that watermark there in a place that would be inconvenient to crop out is important.

3.  It makes you look legit.  I started watermarking before I had any paying clients, when I’d just give away my photos to anyone who asks.  In fact, I do give away playgroup images to the playgroup moms, and I STILL watermark them when I put them on my site.  It just makes you look like a professional- like you’ve got something worth stealing.  And in photography, as in most things, presentation is 80% of the battle.

And now for how.  You can do this any number of ways.  If you want a semi-opaque banner at the bottom of your photographs, here’s what you do:

First you resize your giant 4 MB jpeg to a nice, small 900×600 pixels or something else appropriate for your website.  You do this by going to “Image” and then “Image Size” and typing in your desired width.  (I have created a Photoshop Action to do this for all my horizontal blog images, but that’s for another post.)

Whatever width your image now is, that’s how long your banner watermark is going to be.

So, go to “File–New.”  And specify how long and how high you want your banner to be.  Maybe 900×50 pixels?  And set your background color to “transparent.”  Your banner should look like this:

Then you’ll want to choose the banner color.  I use white as the background, because I don’t want it to clash with my photos.  But let’s change it up and make it black for this exercise.  So, grab your rectangle tool, select black as your fill color and make a rectangle big enough to cover the whole banner.

Now it’ll look like this:  Notice the rectangle tool is chosen, black is fill color, and on the right under “layers” it now has a layer called, “Shape 1″.

Okay, now to make it semi-opaque (i.e. you can see the photo through the banner), click on “opacity” under “layers” and turn it down to 25%.

Then you’ll add your text in a new layer.  Choose the text cursor.  Choose your font, font color, and text justification in the upper part of your screen.  Decide if you want it bold or italic.  Then click once inside the banner and type your watermark- your company’s name, website URL, whatever you want.

In order to position your text where you’d like it, click on the “Move tool” and move it with your mouse.  To get it precisely where you’d like it, use your up and down keys on your keyboard.

And then- this is important- go to “Layer–Merge Visible”

And then click on “save” and save as a .psd file.  DO NOT save as a jpeg, or it will lose it’s semi-opacity and make it completely opaque, meaning you’ll have a huge stripe at the bottom of your photos.  That’s fine if that’s what you’re going for, but if not, then save as a .psd.

Then you ctrl+a and ctrl+c.  Go back to your resized photograph and ctrl+v.  Then use your move tool to put it where you’d like it.

Then save your new watermarked image in a new watermarked image folder (again, I use Photoshop Actions for this, but that’s for another lesson).

And now you’ve got your newly watermarked image!

Hope that helps!  Post any questions in the comments section.

Related Reading...

Tags: photography tips