Everyone wants to know how to protect their photos online, especially with the frenzy surrounding Pinterest these days. Sure, we love having our photography shared and pinned, but we do want proper credit for our work.
When I was at the Blissdom Conference a few weeks ago, during the Legal Confidence session, Sara Hawkins advised everyone to put a copyright notice and their website url on their photos and images. This is simple to do, and if you regularly post photos on your blog, you will probably want to add this extra step to your posting process. (I know, one more thing! Don’t shoot the messenger!)
How to Watermark and Protect Your Photos
1. Open your photo in your favorite photo editing software.
(I use Photoshop Elements, but I hear that iPiccy.com is great — and free!) In fact, for this tutorial, I will use iPiccy so my directions are accessible for everyone.
So here is the photo I plan to watermark — a photo of granola bars that I made for a recipe post.
2. Do any photo editing you want to do.
This is where you rotate, crop, adjust saturation, etc. I would also suggest resizing it for your blog so as to not take up unnecessary room on your server. I generally make my images 600 pixels wide because I know that size fits neatly into my blog’s content column.
3. Select the text tool.
In iPiccy, you will click on the Text tab located in the horizontal tabs above your photo. In Photoshop, you select the Text tool from the toolbar. Every photo editing program has the option to add text, it’s just a matter of finding it in the program you’re using.
4. Type in the information you want to show on your image.
I recommend using the copyright symbol, even though it shouldn’t be necessary. (If the image is yours, it is automatically protected under a common law copyright; but many people aren’t aware of this and think that photos on the Internet are up for grabs, so it’s best to have your images clearly marked as copyrighted.) To make the copyright symbol on a Mac, you use OPTION+G. On a PC, it is ALT+CTRL+C.
You also probably want to include your blog name, and you can also include your blog’s URL if you desire.
Some also like to include the title of the post, if it is an image they hope will be pinned and linked back to their post — such as the How to Watermark Photos image above. Bloggers who post a lot of recipes and craft tutorials will put the title of the post on their photos so people know that there are directions to go along with the image if they click through to the source.
NOTE: The copyright symbol is not showing up with iPiccy. It shows up in the text box but not on the image. HMPH.
5. Adjust the color, size and transparency of your font.
This is super simple with iPiccy. It is already white, and you can use the slider to adjust the Fade and Size. Of course you can also change the color if you’d like.
With Photoshop Elements, you can adjust the Opacity if you want it to be more subtle. (This is the same as the Fade feature in iPiccy.) The Opacity slider is located in the Layers section down there on the right. I have mine set to 68%, but there’s nothing magical about this number. I just adjusted the slider until it looked right to me.
You can change fonts and sizes with the text toolbar across the top.
6. Save Your Image
In iPiccy, click the Save and Share Button. It automatically condenses it, then you can click Save Photo.
In Photoshop, I like to select Save For Web, in the File menu. Select to save as a jpeg and click maximum quality so it’s not grainy. You can also adjust the size of the image here, if you desire.
Then click OK.
And you have your image, nicely watermarked and ready to upload into your blog post!
You can see that I moved the the text around until I found the spot where I liked it best. Since it is white type on a light background, I set the opacity back to 100%. It’s up to you how visible you want the watermark. Just adjust the settings till you get it how you like it.
And that’s all there is to it! Feel free to ask any questions you might have in the comment section below.
Thanks! Have always wondered how to do that.
Thanks so much. I’ve been loving all of your blog/graphic tutorials – keep ‘em coming!
that might be just what I was looking for to replace picnik since it will be gone in april!
I’m not sure why the Windows key combination didn’t work for me, however, I was able to copy the copyright symbol from Word and use it that way. If I do the process multiple files to get the watermark, it won’t take the symbol at all.
However, if you’re like me, and need to go back and watermark old photos, you can do it through the process multiple files in Photoshop Elements 10. Just make sure to check everything so that you keep the file name and the files go back into the directory they came from. Also uncheck resize.
Thanks so much for sharing this. And the granola bars look good, too.
awesome, thanks! i am SERIOUSLY computer-challenged so i really appreciated this tutorial!
Thanks so much for this informative post! I will definitely start doing this on my pics. I had not heard of iPiccy, so I am going to try it out this week!
This might just be me, but when I watermark (I haven’t yet, but it’s on the “list”)…I plan to make the text go over the image itself (not completely, but definitely to where it will interfere with the image). Because, if I wanted to be a jerk (I don’t! LOL), I could save your pic and then crop it to get your watermark off, as long as it’s not interfering with the image.
Kristin, yes, it can certainly be removed, but hopefully it is a bit of a deterrent to some.
The main reason, though, for doing the watermark is for Pinterest. What happens is, people inadvertently pin images incorrectly so that they don’t link back to the source, and then people on Pinterest can’t find your post if they want the recipe or the tutorial or whatever it is. So the watermark helps in that regard.
And it does tell honest people that the image is not for them to use freely at will, because some people just don’t know any better unless it has the copyright symbol on it.
As far as the dishonest people? Yeah, it’s just a bit of a road block for them, and in the end, there is only so much you can do to protect your property.
But, GREAT tutorial…I bookmarked you for when I get to this on my to-do list!
As always, you have the best tutorials, and you always seem to know when I need them
aww thanks!
Such a good step by step guide Jo-Lynne. So good I pointed my readers your way on a blog post. I must say I am concerned at some of the issues I’ve been reading about the Pinterest terms and conditions and how many users may be caught out by copyright infringement once the likes of Getty spot their images being repinned. It seems somewhat unfair to create such a platform and then leave the users exposed by taking part.
Anyway that’s a side issue. Excellent post as ever.
Thanks
Grace
Thanks for the link love! And yeah, that is an issue, but one that I haven’t bothered myself with because I’m no professional photographer (clearly! LOL) But yeah… it’s an issue, and one that isn’t going away.
That’s great! Thanks for the advice. I actually had someone use my whole post and photo recently. They fixed it, but definitely take copyrighting your work seriously and take measures to do so.
Thanks for the great tutorial. I was looking for an online photo editor to replace picnik too. I just tried out iPiccy and it is great. Thanks for the heads up!!
THANK YOU! It’s easy once you know how and this post has made all the difference. Thank you!
So glad it was helpful!
So did you figure out how to add the copyright symbol on ipiccy?
no, it didn’t seem to recognize it. another good one I’m hearing about is picmonkey. you could try that!
Hi,
I so want to know how to Watermark. I read your tutorial but I only have iPhoto on my Mac … not Aperture or any other upgrade whatsoever. I can’t figure out how to add the text? I can find where to change font style, color, etc. I feel really dumb … anyone? anyone?
Heather, iPhoto doesn’t have that capability. Upload your images to a free online software, such as PicMonkey.com.