Watermarking photos

You want to put your character name or website url on your photos because if you don't, people can steal them. Pretty simple. If you do put identifying info on them, your photos can be free advertising.

This tutorial is about working with layers and working with text. I will be writing a simple embossed watermark tutorial soon, and then a more complex one as well.

What we have here is Micki, my new cat.

We're going to put a couple of different types of watermarks on Micki.

Click on the text tool, then click in the photo. A box will come up. Type in the box what you want to appear as your watermark. If the box is covering the part of the photo you are planning on putting your watermark on, drag it and move it.

The red text as it appears on the photo is way too large. You may need to adjust your own so it is larger or smaller. You may also wish to change your font - a bold font works well.

Click on the dropdown menu and select a new text size until the size is right.

Now look at the materials palette.

1. the color of the text outline
2. the width of the text foreground or outline
3. the color of the text background or fill
4. Click this double-ended arrow to switch the text foreground and background colors.
5. color swatches, that you can click to quickly select a color you use frequently

With the text in the window still highlighted, I will set the foreground color to black, the stroke width to 2, and the background color to light gray. You can choose colors that complement your photo, or even make one or the other transparent (no color) by clicking the circle with the line through it under the chosen color. After you have made your selection, click 'Apply'.

The text appears in a box. You can move it around by hovering over the exact center of the box, then clicking and dragging. You can resize by dragging a corner or an edge. You can rotate the text by grabbing the handle just off the center to the right.

Slide the layer transparency slider until the text is semi-transparent.

Save your watermarked image as a .psp file, then as a .jpg.