Gimme Some Oven

How To Watermark Photos With Your Logo

How To Watermark Photos Using Your Logo: a step-by-step Photoshop tutorial | gimmesomeoven.com

Love it or hate it — if you are a blogger or someone who posts original images on the web — it’s probably a good idea that you watermark your images.

I’ll be the first to admit that I fall in the “hate it” category on this one. I resisted adding text and watermarks to my images for the first few years that I was blogging because, like so many food bloggers, I didn’t want anything in my photos to draw attention away from the food! But once Pinterest came on the scene, and countless instances of photography theft along with it, I finally threw in the towel and started adding watermarks to my photos. And I’m convinced that it has cut down on image theft dramatically. Sure, the die-hard photography thieves can figure out how to crop out or remove a logo. But most of the time, it’s a surefire way to claim an image as yours.

Many bloggers I know like to “watermark” their images by adding text on top of the image that says the name or URL of their blogs. But I currently still like using my logo. And once I learned how to turn my logo into a brush in Photoshop (which takes about 2 minutes), it now only takes me (literally) a second to watermark each of my images. Plus, when watermarking this way, I can also control the color, size, and opacity of the watermark too.

Here’s how to do it!

How To Watermark Photos 1

1. Open your logo file.

How To Watermark Photos 2

2. Next, you need to turn your logo completely back. (Mine already happens to be black, but here’s how to do it if yours is colored.)  Click Image > Adjustments > Threshold.

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3. Set the “Threshold Level” at 255, or pull the little slider all the way to the right, then click OK. This should turn your logo completely black.

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4. Next, it’s time to turn your logo into a brush. Click Edit > Define Brush Preset.How To Watermark Photos 5

5. Name your brush whatever you’d like, then click OK.

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6. Optional step: If you’d like to save your brush preset for future use, click the little dial button in the brushes menu (above). Then select “Save Brushes”, and save the set of brushes with whatever name you’d like.

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7. Ok, now it’s time to watermark your image! Open up the photo that you would like to watermark. And then:

  • Be sure that you have the “Background Layer” selected (bottom righthand corner)
  • Click “B”, or go to the lefthand toolbar to select the Brush tool (middle lefthand toolbar)
  • Click on the little Brushes dropdown menu (top lefthand corner) to choose which brush you’d like to use.

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8. The logo brush that you just created will probably already be selected, but this will guide you for future use. (And if it’s not already selected, click the logo brush!)

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9. Your cursor will then turn into your logo brush at full size. This size will probably be too big. So to change the size of the brush, you can either:

  • Go back into the Brushes dropdown menu in the top righthand corner (where you just were), and adjust the “Size” slider. Or….
  • The Much-Preferred Quick & Easy Shortcut: Just hit the “[” or “]” keys on your keyboard to make the brush smaller or larger. I much prefer adjusting the size of the brush this way.

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10. You can also select the color of your brush down at the bottom of the lefthand toolbar. Just click on the upper-left square (the black one in my photo), and then select the color you’d like.

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11. (Optional) You can also adjust the opacity of your brush, if you would like it to be more see-through or opaque. (If you want it opaque/dark, leave the opacity at 100%.)

How To Watermark Photos 1112. Then simply hover your brush over the part of your photo you want to watermark, click it, and voila!

How To Watermark Photos Using Your Logo: a step-by-step Photoshop tutorial | gimmesomeoven.com

13. I spy a watermark! :)

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9 comments on “How To Watermark Photos With Your Logo”

  1. What a good idea, I never thought about using a brush to put my logo on my photos! I haven’t gotten around to watermarking my photos yet, mainly out of laziness and because I hate the look of them but I definitely think I need to start doing it. This method might be just the thing that gets me started.

    Chloe

  2. This is very helpful and a great idea!  I’m just getting started blogging, I think I’m going to start doing this.  THANKS!!

  3. I’ve been on the fence about adding a watermark, since I read that no reputable site would steal a photo, and the ones that would could just remove the watermark, as you pointed out. When you submit your photos to Foodgawker, etc. do you crop out the watermark?

  4. I’m so excited to try this recipe. So delicious!  So inspirational!

    www.trangscorner.com

  5. Nothing can possibly draw attention away from your gorgeous photos!  I love this tutorial and how easy it is.

  6. Exactly what I needed! Thanks so much!!

  7. It’s very time consuming to watermark all these images manually, isn’t? I wonder why not to use Lightroom instead? Photoshop subscription includes this app as well and it allows to batch apply a watermark to a group of photos at once.