{TUTORIAL} Need A Watermark Action That Doesn’t Look Stupid

So I don’t have a lot of time. My boys are going to wake up from their naps soon. And I need to make an action to watermark my photos for my blog. I have been using LR3′s spectacular watermarking feature but now I’m using my brand spankin new STORYBOARD script, and it won’t really work the best now.

I quickly google to find a bunch of tutorials that mostly result in pretty cheesy, big, beveled watermarks that are placed smack CENTER on the photo. That just isn’t going to do.

So I combined THIS tutorial and THIS tutorial to make my own, perfectly simple and customizable watermark you see below. Now the following isn’t going to be terribly detailed (because Asher is stirring….) but if you need more detailed step-by-step instructions go to those tuts I listed previously.

{{{{{It isn’t totally perfected, but I don’t have time to tweak right now. My favorite saying currently is “done is better than perfect”, because like I said I did all this in 15 min or so}}}}}}}

How I MADE MY WATERMARK

Step 1: Make the actual watermark you want to ‘stamp’ on blog images

– made a new doc 250×50 pixels in Photoshop and drug my logo over (you can make it however big you want)

– made background transparent, and logo white

– made white logo transparent, 60%

– saved as png (keeps the background transparent, jpg won’t)

– Saved file as .PNG to a PERMANENT home (won’t get moved around on my computer)

STEP 2: Making the Action

- Pulled up an image resized for my blog, 900 pixels (of Asher looking all cute in Warsaw, Poland last week)

– Made a NEW ACTION, in my own personal HMP HOMEMADE ACTIONS SET

- Now that my Action is RECORDING, I perform the following steps:::::::

1. Open my Watermark.png file I made earlier

2. Hit Command A (select all), then Hit Command C (copy)

3. CLOSE watermark file (DON’T click on your web image, when you close the watermark file you will automatically be ‘on’ your web image)

4. Command V to copy onto my web image (Transparent Logo appears in CENTER of photo, don’t freak)

5. TO GET THE WATERMARK TO THE LOWER RIGHT Select both photo layer and watermark layer and then click on LAYER> ALIGN> “bottom edge”, and then LAYER> ALIGN> “right edge”

6. Now you probably want some ‘padding’ around the watermark so I just used my arrow keys to push it a little up and a little to the left (like 10 ‘clicks’ of my arrow key each way)

7. Flatten Image. ( you can see all this being recorded to the right of the picture below in the layers palette)

8. STOP Recording the action

STEP 3: Revel in the sheer Awesomeness of what you just created

TADAW! Now I have an action that I can click and apply automatically to any photo in Photoshop, but I will be using it to embed in my workflow in my new STORYBOARD script for blogging images. Preeeeety sweet.

If you liked this TUTORIAL (might be my first????) and want me to SHOW YOU MORE of how I made my photography business work on a daily basis LET ME KNOW in the comments below! If I get a lot of feedback I might make this a more regular thing! ;o)

Both boys are up now, and I must run and get dressed because we must leave in 15 minutes. But can’t wait to share all my new blog posts I’m working on!!!!!