Hey there my awesome readers, how are you today? In this article I will show you how to watermark a photo. In photography, is essential to add watermarks to your work. One, for copyright reasons, and two, to make it easy for your viewers to know who shot that specific picture especially when they share your photos.
Watermarking is when you put a signature on a certain part of the photo. And also, is a warning that is copyright protected. So, if you want to download that specific image, you have to buy a license, in some cases.
There are hundreds of apps and software which allows you to add watermarks. But, for most of them, you have to pay for subscriptions to have access to all of its features and to remove their logo.
I will show you how to watermark a photo and personalize it as you wish in editors like Photoshop. And this will save you from paying extra subscriptions. We will start with Photoshop.
But, first….
Choose a font
If you don’t like the fonts from the editor, you can download from the web your desired font. But, always read the licensing before you use it. For some fonts you have to give credit, even if you use it for personal purposes. I will give you a link to a website with thousands of free fonts to choose from. Click the link below.
On this website you will find free fonts which most of them don’t require credit. Check the authors profile for licensing before you download any font.
Once you have your font, extract it and save it somewhere on your computer. Click on the font, you will have two buttons in the upper left (print and install), click on install. Now you have your desired font installed on your computer, and when you open Photoshop or any editor, it will automatically add it there too.
If you already have a subscription in Adobe, you can activate fonts directly from Creative Cloud. Sign in to your Creative Cloud account, 
click on the f in the upper right corner, click browse. Once you found your desired font, click on View Family, then click Activate in the upper right corner. Wait a couple of minutes till it activates it. When you open Photoshop, you will have the font in the drop down when you choose the Text tool.
Adding watermark in Photoshop
Before you open an image in Photoshop, note that you can import images uploaded in Lightroom to Photoshop. If you have images uploaded in Lightroom, you can choose from there on which you want to add watermark. Otherwise…..
Open Photoshop, click on Open and choose the image you want to add your watermark. On the left side, you have a panel with tools. Click on 
to write text. Then, click and drag to expand the text box. Select a font from the drop down 
, I choose Comic Sans MS. In the font size 
, set it between 100 and 130 pt, these sizes are ideal for watermark. Change the text color to white.
Once you have written your text, click on layers in the lower right corner. There you will have a box with the layer and your image.
Now, adjust the opacity to make the text transparent.
And by now you should have something like this.
Of course, this is the simplest way. But, what if you want the text to look more awesome. Well, you can do that with a few tools.
In the upper toolbar, is a letter T on an arch (Warp text tool), near Color picker 
, click on it, and in Style, you can select how you want your text to look.
Play with them until you find one you like.
Adding watermark in Lightroom Classic
Open Lightroom Classic, click on Import, select the image or images which you want to add watermark. After you selected your images, click on Import.
Now, head over Print in the upper right corner, untick Rotate to Fit, scroll until you reach to Identity Plate.
Click on the text to erase it. Next, tick Watermarking, then, click on None, then Edit Watermarks. A pop-up window will open. Here you can adjust the text as you wish. The Graphic section allows you to upload more file extensions.
Adding watermark in Gimp editor
Gimp is a free and open source editor. You don’t have to buy subscriptions to be able to use its features. The interface is similar to Photoshop. You can download Gimp from here.
After you have finished downloading, open Gimp, press CTRL + OÂ to open folders, then choose your image. A pop-up window will open, click on Keep.
Next, click on the A to open the text editor.
If you don’t have it in the left panel, head over Tools and click on Text tool. Click and drag to expand the text box. Set the color to white, choose a font and set the font size to 320px, this size is ideal for watermark. Of course, you can set it to any pixel you want. Next, head over opacity on the right side of the editor, and adjust it to a suitable transparency.
When you are done watermarking, don’t choose Save or Save as, it saves the image in xcf file. So, what you have to do is, click on File, then Export as or press SHIFT + CTRL + E. Select the folder you want to save the image, then click on Export.
If you don’t like to write every time you want to watermark a photo, you can create a logo with your name or brand by clicking on File —> New, choose what Width and Height you want. Then, click on Advanced and in the Fill with, choose Transparency, delete the Created with GIMP comment, and finally, click on OK.
Now you can choose your desired font and create your awesome logo. When you’re done, click on Export as, rename the logo as you wish and, voila, you have your own logo created by you.
And now you don’t have to write the watermark all the times, you just upload it as layer and adjust it to fit with your photo.
Final thoughts
Adding watermarks to your images will help you build your brand, if its well placed and designed. Otherwise, your viewers will get distracted. Same to opacity, adjust it to a lower percentage to avoid distraction when your viewers are looking at your photo.
Take time and practice watermarking, look at your favorite photographers how they place their watermarks. And try to create it similar to them.
If you have any questions or opinions please leave them below, and I will be more than happy to help you. Be safe and take care.
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