Water marks on Pics

Lacrossedad · Feb 11, 2019

I have never sold anything but friends and family have been asking for me to print some pics for them. Is there a way to put a watermark on a whole group of pics all at once so that is in the same spot on the pic and looks consistent? I do use PS/LR. I could spend hours looking, but this group has so many pro's I figured you might the answer quickly. Thanks

smoke665 · Feb 11, 2019

In LR first select alk the pictures you want to export. When you click on the export link the box that pops up has a place to check for and assign the watermark to use. Then when you export all the photos you selected earlier will have the watermark

vintagesnaps · Feb 11, 2019

Usually photos are watermarked when being used (displayed/posted) publicly online, although it's questionable how much it prevents photos from being stolen or used in unauthorized ways.

For prints, in an exhibit or display they aren't watermarked. At art fairs and craft shows etc. a photographer may attach a label to the back of a matted print with the name and other information.

I would rethink 'freebies'. I always took photos of my nephews' sports and of course gave those to my brother and parents. When I did sports I provided photos to fans and season ticket holders (the 'regulars' at the games) at cost, and provided at no charge to the booster club, etc. Beyond that, if people asked for photos of their favorite players, they always offered to pay. If you start free for F&F that can get out of hand; eventually if you want to start charging it could be hard to get people to pay for what was free.

It's your investment of time and practice and cost of equipment etc. to produce photos, and underpricing or 'free' obviously sets a low or no value for all that.

TCampbell · Feb 12, 2019

Something to understand about Lightroom... is that the originals are never changed. So you don't actually apply a watermark to the image "in" Lightroom. When you define a watermark, you can optionally have that watermark applied when you "export" the image.

Open Lightroom
Pick any image.
Right-click on the image to open the pop-up menu.
Mouse down to "Export ->" and when the fly-out menu pops out pick "Export..." (there's "export with previous" which is just a short cut that says "export this image using the exact same settings I used when I exported my last image" (in other words you don't get to change anything).

In the export panel you'll see lots of options... for example if it's a RAW image you probably want to convert to JPEG. Maybe you want to re-size it to a new resolution (I do if I'm sharing it online so that the image doesn't exceed 1000 pixels along it's "longest edge").

But keep scrolling and you'll eventually come to "Watermark" and you'll see a selection menu. Lightroom comes with a "sample" watermark, but you can (and probably will) build your own.

Pick the selection menu and you'll notice one of the choices is "Edit watermarks..."

This opens a new window. It has your image and you're in the watermark editor. It shows the placement of your watermark.

You can import an image (PNG or JPG ... note that PNG's can have transparent backgrounds, JPEGs cannot. If you want an "image" as a watermark then maybe you build it as a PNG with a transparent background.)

You can also build a watermark based on just text .. pick the found, style, color, and loads of other options.

I tend to reduce the opacity of my watermarks so they don't try to steal the attention away from my image. E.g. you could decrease the opacity to maybe 20-30% so that it's a mostly transparent watermark and shows up as a ghost in the corner of the image.

You can set your "anchor" position (e.g. if you want it in the lower right corner).

When you're happy ... DON'T click "Save" ... instead look at the upper left corner (above your photo) for the pull-down menu. Pick "Save current settings as new preset..." and give it a name.

I have a watermark for each year ... so I have my 2019 copyright watermark, but I also have my 2018, 2017, etc.. If you had just clicked "save" then it would overwrite the sample watermark and I prefer to preserve my old watermarks and create new ones.

The watermark only shows up in your EXPORTED images ... you wont see it on any image when you view it INSIDE Lightroom.

Having done all of this ... select all the images you want to share, click "export" and just make sure you tick-on the watermark setting of your choice (your newly named watermark will now be a choice on the selection menu in the watermark category.)