Watermarking Photos
By Barry M Goodknight

A watermark is a mark put on work to identify the artist, maker or owner. When used in photography, it is a way of indicating that the rights of the image belong to the holder. Depending on what the artist chooses to reveal within the watermark, it could consist of anything such as a first and last name, a business name, year or website. The reason to have photos displayed with a watermark on them is to protect the images. Images can be enhanced and reproduced by graphic artists and can be attempted to be resold. People who make a living creating only photographs need to protect their art and there are several ways to go about it.

Branding the entire photo with a watermark ensures that the photo cannot be altered, or makes it more difficult. Many people who are graphically well educated can remove watermarks and make it look like there was never a watermark there in the first place. However, stamping or branding an entire photo with your own name can get in the way of the photo's beauty. Try to keep the watermark simple if you would like to place it on an entire image. Any more than one color draws your eye away from the photo making it a lot less interesting to look at. For simple placement, a name or company and a year can all be put on one line and placed in a more attractive spot depending on the orientation of the photo.

Some of these watermarks can be easily cropped out, but there are other ways of protecting your photos. There are ways that photo metadata (information attached to the photo file) can be copyrighted and when the information of said photo is looked up, the metadata can be seen as property belonging to someone. Another way to protect your photos is to resize the quality so that they are perfectly suitable for the web. If you resize an image to fit in a specific space where the quality still looks great, people trying to copy or steal that photo have less flexibility. They are less able to alter and remove the watermark from a photo. In essence, you're giving them less to work with.

There are hundred of ways you can go about creating a watermark. Consider where you would first want it to be placed, and then what you would want it to look like. When thinking about where your placement should be, look at photographs with watermarks on them and ask yourself if you want it to be simple, obtrusive, in the way or out of the way. Some photographers put their watermarks on a very intricate and detailed part of their photograph because it would be harder to alter or replace. Color is also important-your eyes should be drawn to the photograph, not the watermark. Many people use black or white, or create a transparent black, making it look see-through and gray.

For those who are proficient in Photoshop, there are ways you can create editable text, or make your watermark an image meant for placement. There are third-party applications that you can download or purchase that can help you create the watermark edit your images at the same time, also known as batch editing.

To create a simple watermark in Adobe Photoshop, try this:

Choose an image you would like to place a watermark on.
Select the "T" or the "Type" tool and enter what you would like to see on your photographs. Ex: © Photo 2010. Choose the font and size you would like it to be, click the move tool and place it.
Copyright symbol for Macintosh users is made from the combination of keys Option+G.
For Windows users, use keys Alt+0169.
Choose a color, a shade or opacity of a color for the watermark.
Save!

Photos with this type of text layer will by default be saved as a .PSD (a Photoshop file). You can change that by choosing the file format you would like. A basic watermark like the one shown above can be converted into an "Action" which can help you save time by doing all of that in one click.

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Article written by Barry Goodknight on behalf of Naples Photography by Sara