Adding a Watermark: Response to Elise

I would like to sell my photographs on Artfire, but I need to watermark them before posting them. How do I watermark my photos?


Elise



Elise,

Adding a Watermark to photos is generally a good idea for handmade sellers, and necessary for photographers to protect their work.

There are lots of ways to add a watermark to photos, but you will need some kind of photo editing software to do so. I’ve put together a brief tutorial on adding a watermark in Photoshop, since that tends to be one most popular photo editing program, but if you don’t have Photoshop you can check out this HandmadeNews article offering brief reviews on similar software.

Adding a Watermark with Photoshop:

Step 1: Prepare Your Photo

Start by transferring your photo onto your computer. For this example, we’re going to use a photo of a nice bracelet.

Step 2: Adding Text

Open the file in Photoshop. Using the Type Tool (shown as a “T” on the left toolbar) write your watermark. This is can be as simple as your business name with a copyright symbol © and the date. It’s generally best to put this in the middle of the picture so it can’t be easily cropped out, and be sure to make it nice and big.

Some artisans will stop at this step, but to make the watermark look professional, it helps to make the watermark somewhat see-through.

Step 3: Making the Watermark Transparent

Locate the “Layers” window. (This window might be “hidden” if you don’t use it much, but you can make it visible again by selecting the Windows tab from the File menu and going down to “Layers” to make sure that it is checked and visible.) Select the Type layer with your watermark text. Just above the layer, you should see an opinion for “Opacity” click this and using the scrollbar, determine how transparent you want your watermark to be. Generally, you don’t want to distract from the image, but you do want people to notice it. For my example, I found 56% to be perfect.

Step 4: Flatten and Save

From the Layer Menu, select “Flatten Image” to get rid of the extra layers.

Next, save your image, making sure it is saved as a .jpeg and not a .psd file. Now you can upload it to your ArtFire studio and list it for as item to sell. Just make sure to include in your item description that the actual photo wouldn’t contain the watermark!

Hope that helps you get started. Let me know if you have any other questions!

Sara
Sell Handmade Crafts Online