I enjoy getting photography and developing questions from people. When certain questions come up often enough I realize the topic might warrant a video tutorial of its own. Such is the case with how to place watermarks on images in Photoshop. Many of us who share our images on the web or by email like to place an identifying watermark on them, like the one on my image above. While it doesn’t guarantee images won’t be used without our permission, at least it lets others know that they do belong to someone and who that person is. Some well known photographer’s watermarks even become as recognizable as their images and names.
Adding some text or a logo to an image in Photoshop is easy enough to learn, but it requires multiple steps. If done manually on a regular basis adding watermarks can become time consuming and tedious. It is also difficult to keep the watermark consistent each time. Adding watermarks to web images is a perfect repetitive job for a Photoshop action. However, creating a single action that can successfully and proportionally place a logo or text on an image of any size or orientation isn’t as obvious as it might seem. I know this from the frequent questions I get. In this video I demonstrate how to record a single action that accomplishes the task. It takes a few minutes to record the action, but you will get that time back after just a couple uses.
In this second video I show TKActions Panel users how to assign the watermark action to one of the customizable buttons in the panel. This makes it super efficient to size and sharpen an image for the web using the panel and then place your custom watermark on it with just one more button click.
It took me many years of inefficient watermarking before someone showed me how to create a single watermarking action that works on all images. I hope you find this information helpful and are able to put it to good use. Let me know in the comments if you have questions or any of your own tips or tricks to add.
Sean is an outdoor photographer, digital image developing enthusiast and photography educator based in Ashland, Oregon, where he resides with his wife and two sons. His previous career as a science teacher makes photography education a good fit. Sean teams up with fellow Photo Cascadia members leading workshops. He also teaches digital image developing classes, lectures and offers a series of Photoshop video tutorials.
More posts by Sean Visit Sean’s Image Gallery Visit Sean’s Website
Recent Comments