Photoshop Create Watermark Tutorial

Art is being stolen everyday on the internet. As artists who post artworks online, we need to protect ourselves from art thieves.

I have even heard of people stealing images and selling them on Etsy products and elsewhere. Although this has not been personally experienced (not that I know of anyway), I have found my art on other websites without permission or any credit.

How do we as online artists protect ourselves from this kind of thievery? We have an entire article devoted to the subject: How to Prevent Art Theft Online

 

One of these effective methods for protecting our art, mentioned in this tutorial, is watermarking!

Below is a complete article on how to watermark artwork photos using Photoshop.

If interested in our other Photoshop tutorials, please visit:

Optimizing Images of Art with Photoshop Part 1
Image Optimization of Artworks using Photoshop Part 2

 

Making a Watermark in Photoshop

 

1. Open Photoshop and create a new document (File – New or Ctrl+N). Adjust the dimensions and resolution.  Change this depending on the largest image size that will be used. I selected a width of 1500, and length of 200, as shown. Adjust the resolution and make sure Background Contents is set to Transparent, then click OK.
   
   
   
2. Use the Horizontal Type Tool for the text. This can be found in the menu on the left. Start typing in the text and adjust the text size and font, if necessary. A text size of 36pt and Arial font was selected for this example. 
   
   
3. Style Layers
   Select fx at the bottom of the layers section, then choose Bevel and Emboss.
   
   
   Adjust the styles until the desired effect is achieved. I chose Level and emboss and set it according to the image shown below. There are a lot of settings here, so you may want to experiment with what works for you. When completed, proceed to the next step.
   
   
   
   
4. Adjusting Opacity
   Changing the opacity ensures the watermark does not stand out too much. Look on the layer panel, in the upper-right to adjust the slider to your liking. This example uses a 62% opacity.
   
   
5. If planning on using the same watermark for other artwork images, repeat these steps using the instructions below.

 

How to Create a Photoshop Watermark Action

 

1. Open the art photo to be used for the watermark. Go to the actions menu, located at the top under “Window”.
   
   
2. Select Create New Action, as circled in the image, and name it anything, such as watermark.
   
   
3. Simply click RECORD, and go through the steps in the first part of this tutorial.
   
   
4. When completed, press on STOP in the actions palette.
   
   
5. To use the watermark on separate artwork photographs, simply go to Window-Action, click the watermark action, and select Play.

 

We hope this Photoshop tutorial has been very helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them below.

To find out if your art may be stolen or not, and appears on other websites, please read:

How to Find out if Photos are Stolen