Okay @lusil0u, how to make your watermark look like this (indented? whatever it is, I hope this helps!) :
I am using Procreate, but you can use most art apps I think
To start off, get whatever you want to watermark onto its own layer. It does have to be pure black for this to work the best. This is now layer 1
First, you make layer 1 a soft light layer and turn the opacity to 5-20%
Then you hide layer 1 and duplicate it. That's layer 2 now. Turn the opacity back to 100% and duplicate layer 2
Invert this layer, now dubbed layer 3. the blending mode should still be soft light, not the invert blending mode. hit whatever button works on your art app that flips the colors, or inverts them. It should turn invisible now, or at least close to this. IT IS SUPPOSED TO DO THAT
Now you select layer 3 and nudge it a few pixels in any direction.
I generally move it up one pixel and to the right two pixels, but depending on the shape of whatever you are watermarking you might have to mess around with it to find a nice balance. you don't want it to go too far past where it started out, just enough that you can see a difference.
After that, you turn layer 1 back on. you can adjust the opacity a bit to your liking, but this gives the watermark a bit of color to make it stand out more. I've seen people who dont do this at all, sometimes even I don't, but I do like to make sure the watermark is pretty clearly visible. the opacity still shouldn't go past 5-20% though.
But then you are done! you might have to tweak some things a little bit, but it should look a bit like this. Another thing is that when put on top of pure white/black it wont show up at all, but that is usually just lineart, so it should be fine. I find that it often looks more authentic/realistic when you use a textured brush, but any of them will work really.
I hope this helps Lucille! sorry it was such a long post, but you should be able to make your watermark look like mine did!
Whether you make 100 percent digital work, or scan/upload your physical pieces (even photos of craft items), watermark your work.
There's the obvious reason for this, to keep people from stealing it and rebranding it as their own, but it's not just about trying to get clout, in many cases, if you've posted unmarked, high-resolution images, they can upload that to sites like RedBubble, and be making money selling your items.
Even if you use sites like RedBubble to sell your own items, people will screen cap your images and sell them as low-quality rip-offs, and you have to contact the site to have them taken down, and it's a whole thing. RB does offer adding watermarks, and if you want to protect your work--for the love of god, use the feature.
NAOW, we're facing an entirely new kind of theft, in AI scraping, where these programs are hoovering up people's work illegally, learning from it, and reproducing garbage from it. As we speak, tech bros are lobbying for the end of IP laws to allow them to do this legally. AND, that's not even talking about the environmental damage these data centers popping up all over the country are causing, or the intense ruining of the quality-of-life it's causing the residents they're building them on top of.
So, if you want to avoid these things, you have to get used to the idea of ruining your art, intentionally. This is hard for a lot of us to wrap our minds around, but it's A MUST to protect yourself, your bottom line, and fight AI and eco-destruction. It's also super-simple, and doesn't really matter what program you use, I would guess you could even do it on a phone, but I am B-E-G-G-I-N-G you all to get back into computers, and learn how to do things like a pro.
HOW TO DO IT:
This won't be a specific tutorial, but it's so simple, you can just apply it to whatever program you use. The commands might be in a different place, but it'll get you to the same conclusion.
First, open your image, whatever it may be, it's up to you and how you share on whether or not you use your full-size HQ versions, or a smaller internet-friendly image.
Next, create a new layer, or open a new doc the same dimensions as the image you want to mark. ⭐️I suggest having a large-sized template that you can reuse and apply to all of your works, as needed.⭐️ Sometimes the color or opacity needs adjusted to show up enough to obscure the image.
From here, use a stamp, cut-out, clip image, or you can make something simple. It can even be your name, or your logo. From there cover your canvas with it, you can make an evenly-spaced pattern, or make it random. You do have to make sure it doesn't obscure the image you're trying to protect too much, it should be noticeable, but not overtake the image. After that, drop the transparency (opacity) down to around 25 percent, and keep it monochromatic so it doesn't compete with your work. Then save. If you're using Photoshop keep it as a Photoshop file, otherwise save as a png so that you can easily maintain and work with the transparency--JUST REMEMBER if you do save as a png, remove or make invisible any canvas background you worked on, so it saves as a transparency.
And there you have it! It really is that simple.
Here's a couple more pro-tips to save you time and trouble:
⭐️Make sure the watermark is small and repeating, this is less competitive with the image, and makes it so it can't be cropped out of the image--say if you just put one mark at the bottom. A clever editor can remove watermarks by hand, but if you make it annoying enough, they won't bother.
⭐️If your transparency watermark layer is not showing up against the color or colors of the image, even if you turn up the opacity--invert it! Use the invert command and it will change to the opposite color, from black to white, for instance.
⭐️If you are using a sales site like RedBubble, make sure the image you upload for your products does NOT have the watermark on it, or it will show up on all of your products. Just enable their watermarking feature during the listing process.
⭐️As per recent studies, internet traffic is now comprised of around 60% bots, so if you want to keep making things for a human audience to enjoy and help the planet, ruin your art a little bit.⭐️
i have seen alot of people manually write their url/ watermark or place their logo (essentially, a photo) in each gif or photo they make/edit, which is obviously a waste of time and effort. "Actions" is a life and time saving photoshop function for watermarks.
When you make an action for the watermark, the action will place your text / photo exactly where you positioned it while making the action with the font, blend, size and position you chose.
So, here is a small but helpful tutorial of how to put your logo/text watermark in photoshop using actions on photos or gifs by your friendly neighborhood CC!
i use photoshop 2021 for making my stuff. You can download photoshop and other gifs/grfx related resources from this page. (studiocarat, a grfx network for carats)
This was originally going to a part of my other "photoshop tips n tricks" tutorials but i noticed that this is a sorta big one and imp one and thus needs a tutorial of its own.
ABOUT "ACTIONS"
You can record most—but not all—commands in an action.
You can record operations that you perform with the Marquee, Move, Polygon, Lasso, Magic Wand, Crop, Slice, Magic Eraser, Gradient, Paint Bucket, Type, Shape, Notes, Eyedropper, and Color Sampler tools—as well as those that you perform in the History, Swatches, Color, Paths, Channels, Layers, Styles, and Actions panels.
Results depend on file and program setting variables, such as the active layer and the foreground color. For example, a 3‑pixel Gaussian blur won’t create the same effect on a 72‑ppi file as on a 144‑ppi file. Nor will Color Balance work on a grayscale file.
When you record actions that include specifying settings in dialog boxes and panels, the action will reflect the settings in effect at the time of the recording. If you change a setting in a dialog box or panel while recording an action, the changed value is recorded.
Go to Window > Actions. You will see a small play botton in your toolbar on the right side, that’s your actions. Click on it and it’ll open your box with some photoshop actions.
LOGO IN GIFS
Step 0: open photoshop, load your gifs, convert them into a smart object, do you colouring ! Make sure your gif is in timeline video mode !
Since, your doing a logo, you have to have a logo already made and saved in a png format in your laptop. So when you play your action, PS will automatically place you logo png from the destination it was saved in. Your logo can be in a 100 x 100 px transparent background.
for example, my logo looks like this:
Step 1: Click on the folder icon to create a new "Action Set". Name your set. for example, 'watermark'.
Step 2: Click on the '+' icon beside the Action set icon. It will create a new action. You can select which Action Set you want it to be a part of; in this case, "watermark" action set. Rename your new action as your preference.
The second you hit the record button in the dialog box, everything you do will be recorded as steps/action so don't do unnecessary steps or else you'll have to redo your whole action.
Step 3 : The small button in (3) will turn red (🔴) indicating the recording has begun.
Step 4 : Assuming you already have your logo made and saved, click on File > Place / Place embedded. It will open your file manager, select your logo and press enter. It will place your logo on your gif as a separate layer. If it is made on a small PNG (eg. 100 x 100 px), you wont need to resize the photo, but if necessary please resize the logo to your preference.
Step 5: Right click your layer and rasterize it clicking "rasterize layer". Place your timeline cursor thingy at the starting of the timeline.
Step 6: Select your whole document by the shortcut CTRL/CMND + A or Select > All.
Step 7: Now, select your logo layer by clicking it. Go to Layer > Align layer to selection. Select Align Bottom. You'll see your logo move to the bottom. Go to Layer > Align layer to selection again and click on Alight left or Align Right according to your preference.
i don't like my logo sticking to the edges, so i selected the logo, pressed CNTRL/CMND + T and used arrow keys and pressed right & up arrow keys 5-8 times so that logo doesn't stick to the edge.
Step 8: Now, in most cases, the logo layer will be longer than the gif layer in timeline. Like this:
Now, You can place your Timeline cursor thingy somewhere in the middle of the logo layer from the starting by dragging it and press cut ( the scissors icon) on timeline. This will split your layer in two. layer “logo” and “logo copy”.
Step 9: Delete the second half of the cut (logo copy) by selecting it and pressed 'delete' key on your keyboard.
Step 10: Press the square logo (■) on your action box to stop recording. Voila! you're done recording your action !
Step 11: you might notice that you can't see you logo, just adjust the logo layer so that it matches the gif layer! The only thing you'll need to adjust in each gif is the size of layer by matching it to the gif layer.
Don’t make the adjust layer size in timeline as a part of your action because it is different with every gif.
You can adjust your blending mode according to your preference but recommended are overlay & soft-light.
TEXT IN GIFS
STEP 1, 2 AND 3 ARE THE SAME
STEP 4: click on your text tool and type out your watermark name (url, name, whatever) in your preferred font and size. ( recommended size: 10). Press enter.
STEP 5: You don't require to rasterize your layer cause you may want to edit the text later.
STEPS 6 THROUGH 11 ARE SAME.
LOGO IN PHOTOS
FOLLOW STEPS 1 THROUGH 7 to get your action for logo in photos.
Action you just made for gifs won't work with photos because it has the command like "set time of time line", "Split video layer", " Select file 'LOGO copy'" and "Delete Layer" and these won’t work on a photo.
Since there is no timeline in photos, you don't require steps 8, 9 and 10.
TEXT IN PHOTOS
STEPS 1, 2 AND 3 ARE SAME
STEP 4: click on your text tool and type out your watermark name (url, name, whatever) in your preferred font and size. ( recommended size: 10). Press enter.
STEP 5: You don't require to rasterize your layer cause you may want to edit the text later.
FOLLOW STEPS 6 & 7 AND PRESS STOP RECORDING ■.
You can choose your preferred blending mode.
You will see all your action recorded and saved. PS has an auto syncing function so once you have made your action, you don't have to make it again. When required, just select the Action you want and press play ▶
My actions look like this for logos & text (url) in gif:
End result:
i tried my best to explain. if you have any problem or doubt in a step, please feel free to approach me!
Thankyou for coming to my little tutorial. The End ♡
when following this, please refer to the steps i illustrated here 💖
disclaimer: english is not my first language, so i apologize if the sentences aren’t 100% correct or if they aren’t the easiest to understand.
as always, if you have any troubles feel free to send me an ask!
adding a watermark to a gif is actually very easy! the most important factor in the end is the font you choose; you can find some specifically for watermarking here (for this tutorial’s gif i used the one called 04b03).
again, each step is followed by a picture (in italian!) that illustrates it.
a watermark can be applied either during step 10, like the coloring (always make sure all the purple bars are the same lenght!), or right before you save your gif (like in this tutorial). in both cases, the steps are the same and the text layer should be on top of all the other layers.
step 1: click on the text tool on the left bar. your text can be horizontal or vertical: to choose, right click on the tool.
step 2: (if you’re doing this at the end of the process like me, select all your frames first) now, click somewhere on your gif and type in your watermark. depending on the colors and lightning of what you have giffed, in order to make your text visible as much as you like, play around with its settings (in the window i pointed at with red), mainly the dimensions, the bold and especially the color. what can also determine your text’s clarity are the blending modes and the opacity (both circled in red). after having figured all this out, use the move tool (on the left bar) to place the text where you want.
after this, you should either save or go on with step 11.
@gugle1980 here you go :) Here are the steps. You can use any font you want to. If you want to see it with something with color let me know and I’ll use a poser image on top of another image.
1. Create a new layer
2. Use any font and write what you want as your watermark. White works best
3. Go to Filters>Stylized>Emboss
4. PS will ask if you want to rasterize the layer click yes and it will emboss
5. Change the layer type to Overlay
6. Move your now clear watermark where you’d like it.
Please excuse my old Photoshop CS6 lol
You can do it without an image underneath and save it as a psd then you can copy it over to a new image any time you’d like. I actually made a tube in Paintshop to just use it over and over. Not entirely sure how to do the same thing in PS
