In my previous post I detailed a method to place a watermark on your photos. While that method does have the advantage of making the photo unsuitable for printing it is not the method I prefer.

 I find that the copyright mark is a bit obtrusive. Fortunately I stumbled across another way to add a watermark to your photos which is a lot less obtrusive. So fire up photoshop and lets get started.

 First off I want to state that I discovered this method on a web site so it is not truly my own. I have since lost the URL (website address). So if any of you readers know of where it came please let me know so I can give the author due credit. Besides there are lots of great tutorials on that site too that I would like to read again.

1. For this method we are going to use a feature of photoshop that I rarely use. The displace
   filter. So the first thing we have to do is create a new document. Make a new RGB document 100 pixels tall by 400 pixels wide.

2. Select Edit > Fill 50% grey . The displace filter will ignore gray.





3. Now type the text you want to watermark your photo with in this document. Merge all the layers and select Filter > Stylize > Emboss, set the height to 1 and the amount to 100%.

4. Save this image as Copyright Image.psd or a file name that you will remember. This will become our displacement map.
5. Open the image you want to place the copyright mark on. Be sure that it is a copy of the original as these changes will become permanent.
6. Now select Filter > Distort > Displace . This is where you can tell photoshop how to use the displace map. If you are using a logo you can select stretch to make it cover the entire image. I almost always select Tile. Under the “Undefined Areas” I always select “Wrap Around”. Using this method I don’t think there are any undefined areas. When you click OK photoshop will ask you for your displacement map. Point it to the file we just made.

7. Now your watermark may be a little difficult to see (which is what we wanted). But if you zoom in to a section you should be able to see it. You may have to play with the scale to find a size that best suites your photos. If it is too big you undo it and then use the displace filter again changing the scale.

8. From here you can go to the File Menu and select File Info and enter your information like we did in the previous post.
9. If you like this method then I highly recommend making it into an action. That way you can use it for batch processing of multiple images.

 Here is the finished copyright photo. I find this to be my method of choice for photos that I post to the web.

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 Has this ever happened to you? Your surfing the web looking at photos to get ideas and learn better composition. When suddenly a picture captures your eye. Wait a second you took that picture! But that’s not your name on it. Some one is trying to pass off your work as there own.

 Or here’s a more realistic scenario. some one hires you to do some photo shop work for them and wants to see the finished project. So you dutifully post the pictures to your web site to show your client that yes indeed you are doing what they want. Then you never here back from them. They have taken your posted pictures from the web and printed them off leaving you out in the cold.

  In this tutorial I will show you one way of placing a water mark right in the picture so that it will print out with the picture. Meta copyrights are great but they don’t help a hill of beans when some one prints off your work, or uses it in print media. Now a good photoshop user can in all honestly remove this watermark but it will take a bit of effort. In a later tutorial I will show you another way to put a watermark on a photo that is much more difficult and time consuming to remove.

So lets get started!

1. Fire up photoshop if you haven’t already and open the photo you want to place your watermark on.
2. Choose the Custom Shape tool from the tool box. (It is the icon that looks like a little blog right underneath a black arrow)
3. After selection the custom shape tool, go up to the options bar and select the copyright symbol.

4. Create a new blank layer bu clicking on the Create New layer button at the bottom of the layers pallet.
5. Now hit the letter “D” on your keyboard to turn your fore ground color to black and drag the copyright symbol over your photo.(use your judgement as to the size you want to go. Also keep in mind that we’ll be adding some text next to it. Below is a picture with the copyright symbol at a size I felt was good.
6. Next select the text tool, select your font and type your text. I always type the year and my name or my web sites name. When you enter the text photoshop will automatically create it on a new layer. After you have entered your text and moved it to a position that you like.



7. Now go under the filter menu and select Stylize then choose Emboss. Use the filter with the default settings of Angle 135′, Height 3 pixels, and Amount 100%. If you increase the height you’ll get a more pronounced look. When photoshop tells you that the layer must be rasterized select Okay. (Note that after you rasterize the layer you will not be able to edit the text)

8. Now select the layer with your copyright symbol and do the same as above. Once it has been embossed select your text layer and on the PC hit Ctrl + E, or Apple + E on the mac. This merges the two layers to form one.
9. Now we are going to smooth out the edges a bit to give it a little more refinement. On the layers pallet turn on the Lock Transparent Pixels. (the first icon on the left at the top in the Lock section) Then got to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and add a 2 to 3 pixel blur.

10. Make sure your copyright layer is selected and choose Hard Light from the blend menu. This will make your text and symbol transparent.
11. Now go under the File menu and Choose File Info. This will bring up the screen below.


12. Here is where you’ll enter the embedded information. Change the Copyright Status pop up menu to Copyrighted. enter your copyright notice information in the appropriate field. I usually just enter the year and my name. You can also add your web site address in the “Copyright Info URL:” box. Hit okay and all this information is recorded.
13. Now if you like this method of adding a watermark I would suggest you make this whole thing into an action so you can do it with the touch of a button. Once you have it as an action you can even apply this to a whole folder of pictures by using batch automate. We will do this in the next copyright tutorial where I’ll show you how to create the copyright that I prefer.

 Below is the finished project. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

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