Deborah Woehr

Watermarks are a great way to protect your work against copyright infringement because they are embedded in your images. Photoshop CS3 has a filter called Digimarc which embeds watermarks into your images. The thing is, you’ll have to pay $79 annually for their basic subscription package in order to get it to work. You can find free watermarking software online for both Macs and PCs. But why go to all of that trouble when you can make your own custom watermark inside Photoshop with a text layer?

Once you type in your copyright information, make sure your watermark is placed in a spot where it is not easy to edit out without looking obvious. I’ve seen some transparent watermarks that were displayed diagonally across the image. Simply change the transparency of the text so that it blends in somewhat within your image, and then rotate it. Make it stand out by giving it a drop shadow and/or embossing it. I’ll provide an example for you below.

Before I close, I want to tell you that watermarking your images serves another purpose besides piracy protection. Google indexes your images whether you want it to or not. In fact, Google loves images. So, instead of putting ©John Smith 2008 for your copyright info, use your name and/or your website.