Custom Watermark Tutorial

javier.rinaldijavier.rinaldi Registered Users Posts: 210 Major grins
edited May 23, 2006 in SmugMug Support
hi everyone,

like many of you I have for a long time wanted to have my own custom watermark in my photos, and like many of you I have tried all the tutorials out there, but if I wanted consistent results I had to resize my images or do it manually.
I wanted a method to work with any of my images, without resizing and to always place my logo in the same place, everytime, in the same relative size, everytime.
This method also allows you to create a new logo anytime and use it just by replacing a file, or make changes to it without creating a new action.

So after fiddling around with photoshop for a few hours (to my fiancee's dismay)
I came up with the following method.
You can access the tutorial with images here http://www.jrinaldiphotography.com/watermarking

A PDF version of the tutorial is also available http://tinyurl.com/fdmr9

or follow this procedure

1- If you wish to hand draw you logo, or if you wish to use your signature, take a piece of clean, heavy white printing paper or index card.

2- Design your logo, you can also use any graphic you have already generated, preferably black and white, since color info will be discarded later.

3- Take out your camera and set up your newly drawn design in a place with nice even lighting. Take a couple of pictures, try to shoot raw and expose to the right, we actually want the highlights to be close to blown.

4- Use your RAW processor to adjust white balance, increase contrast and bring those highlights far into the right.

5- Open your logo in Photoshop and change to image mode to 'grayscale'.

6- If you didn't or couldn't shoot RAW, use photoshop's controls to increase the contrast and blow your highlights.

7- Tidy up your logo in anyway you want, erase stray marks, you can also add text (copyright so and so) at this point so that it gets vectorized alog with the graphic, but it turns out nicer if you add it later on.

8- Select the magic wand from the tool palette.

9- Use the magic wand tool (or masking) to select all the white regions in the picture. If you have text at this point be mindfull to select the white spaces inside letter, otherwise it'll look weird when placing into a document.

10- Now invert your selection so that only the black parts of your image are selected.

11- Open the paths palette and select 'make work path from selection'.

12- Now select 'Edit>Define Custom Shape' to turn your logo into a vectorized shape that will be scalable and resolution independent.

13- Give your new logo a name like 'Copyright Logo'

14- Now create a new document, call it 'Copyright Logo'. And here's the important part, make sure that it is square in dimension (1x1), has a transparent background, and the dimensions are larger than the images you'll be applying it to (my images are about 3000px on the long end, so I used 3200x3200 for this example). The total size of the image will be quite small since all you'll have in it is a vector.

15- Now select the custom shape tool from your tools palette.

16- Set your custom shape options to 'defined proportions' and 'from center'.

17- Select your newly created logo from the list of available shapes. You can also apply your favorite style or color it anyway which way at this point or you can do it later.

18- Place your cursor in the exact center of your image [50%,50%] (you can use guides with snaps to help you) and expand your logo until it fits the canvas without spilling outside.

19- Your new shape layer should take form based on the style used. This is probably the best time to add text, since it makes it editable, remember that you're not limited to the 72px that it lists in the font size.

20- You can now select your new shape layer and style it to taste.

21- Save this document as 'copyright logo.psd' (this is photoshop's own format, it's nice for layers, transparencies and vectors)

22- Save the file to a location you'll remember but won't modify or accidentally delete.

23- Open an image, any image you want to add a watermark logo to.

24- Open your 'Ruler and Units' preferences dialog box. Then change your ruler settings to 'percent'.

25- Open your actions palette, and create a new action. Name your new action something like 'Copyright Logo', give it a shortcut if you like.

26- Select the place command from the file menu.

27- Select your newly saved 'Copyright Logo.psd' image.

28- The bounding box for the new layer should be limited by your lesser dimension, regardless of aspect ratio. Also note that your image will always appear in the the center of the canvas by using the 'place' command.

29- Use the transform tools that appear automatically after you place the image to scale your logo to the desired dimensions. Use the percentage controls to make sure that your logo is always the same size relative to the shortest dimension of your image.

30- Select both layers by pressing shift and selecting your background layer.

31- Use the 'layer>align' menu tools to align your logo to any corner you'd like, or just leave it in the center. Make sure to use the menu for alignment and not the toolbar buttons, these won't register in the action.

32- Select your Copyright Logo layer

33- Select the move tool from the tools palette and move or translate your icon a little further from the corner (unless you're leaving it in the center) and press the checkmark (if you used the transform tool)

34- If you want, adjust any layer properties, but these are better changed in your 'Copyright Logo.psd'.

35- Now flatten your image to make it all permanent (unless you don't want to)

36- You can now stop recording, your action should look like above.

37- Combine with bridge and the Image Processor for batch watermarking.

I know this may seem kind of long, but I didn't want to skip any steps.

Best of luck, hope this helps out. I know many people out there want to be able to do this.
Jav


Creator of: SmugManager

"There's no dark side or the moon, really. Matter of fact it's all dark..."
Sign In or Register to comment.