post processing - How do you create a watermark for photos?

How do I create a watermark?

Answer

There are a number of ways to create a watermark, with varying degress of ease.

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  An application that allows you to "apply" a watermark during image export. This is pretty straightforward. Adobe Lightroom has this option.

  
  


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  An image hosting company that lets you apply watermarks to all uploaded images. This is also straightforward, though can be a paid-for feature. Smugmug has watermark capabilities for "Pro" accounts.

  
  


• 
  

  Image editing applications have recordable sequences that can be played back on to an image. You would record the sequence of steps of manually applying a water mark. Then replay this sequence on an image as needed, to produce a watermark.

  
  
  


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  Manually create a watermark.

  
  

For the last two options, the steps to create a water mark are usually:

1. Create a new layer


2. Add text or an image in the desired location on the new layer


3. Flatten the image

Obviously this requires an image editor that supports layers (almost all do these days).