Adding A Watermark To Your Photos

You take great photos, why not share them? The problem is when those photos get used illegally or without your permission. We’ve given you a few different options when it comes to protecting your online photos in this previous article, but today I’m going to go a little more in-depth with my preferred method, the watermark.

Adding an image on top of your image is a sure fire way to keep someone from using it without your permission, but who wants to cover up their entire picture with a graphic? On the other hand, how much good does it do to use a watermark that  can easily be cropped out? Well, I’m going to walk you through an easy way to create a functional watermark that doesn’t interfere with the integrity of your image.

Let’s start by choosing a photo you would like to try this on. Open the photo in Photoshop.

Next, we’re going to create a new text layer on top of our photo. To do this, select your text tool and draw a box on top of the photo with it.

 

This will create a new text layer and give us a text box to work with.

While inside the text box, hold the alt key and type 0169 (if you’re on a Mac, hold the option key and press the letter G). This will give you the copyright symbol (©) … but it’s probably tiny in proportion to your photo. Highlight the symbol and enlarge the font size until it is the size you want. It should look something like this:

With that layer selected, click on the add layer style button    ,  and select Bevel and Emboss.

This will open a menu with the Bevel and Emboss options.
We’re going to use the following settings:

Finally, take your fill all the way down to 0% and your opacity down to 40.

And there we have it, a subtle, professional looking watermark.

Keep in mind you can replace the © with a different shape, such as your logo.