Watermarking Photos (Batch)

Gene from Texas, using Photoshop CS with windows on a Dell M60 PC, writes in with:
[Quote:] How do I put a watermark on all photos in a folder? If I have several photos from a wedding, and I want to put a studio name watermark across all of the photos before I burn them to CD for the bride to look at.
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This is a very frequent question, and we're working on a pictorial tutorial of this but there are several others ahead of it. For now, there is the step-by-step...

The Watermark

Start with a pencil and a note pad. Make a note of any settings as you go along. This will be a big help once we generate the action and droplette.

Next, open a typical photo image you'll be watermarking.

If you haven't already set up a logo or symbol for watermarking that's okay, we'll simply use type. If you have a logo for watermarking, then use it instead of the type. For most photos you will want the watermark to work in both light and dark situations, yet still have an amount of transparency so it allows the photo to be viewed clearly. So, we'll have to introduce some white and some black. Additionally, we recommend a sans serif font to reduce the visual complexity of the mark.

Click new layer
Type in the watermark info as you wish it to appear.
Rasterize the type
Run the Emboss Filter, adjust settings to suite
Set the layer blending mode to "Hard Light" to let the image show through

This sets up the file and its attributes.

Choose: File > File Info

Key in the information you want attached to the file. Enter author's name, business name and insert your URL if you have one. For the sake of automation, don't insert any information that is pertinent to this specific file -- you want generic, company information only.

Be sure to enter the copyright notice (c) 2004 and your business name. Use the Copyright symbol key. Make sure you select the Copyright Status and set "Copyrighted Work"

Click Okay and the info is added to the file.

Flatten the file.

Recording the Action

Next we'll record the action. Of course you kept notes of all the settings for the file, right?

Move that file window to the side and open the next file.

Open the Actions Palette (Window > Actions)
Click the "New Action" button (next to the trash can.)
Name the action and select the Function key you want to activate the action.
(In lieu of this, you can simply run the action from the Actions Palette, but the F-key will be much more convenient.)

Now, are you ready? Click the "Record" button and it will glow red.
This means you are in record mode.

Now, walk through each step you took before. (Got notes?)
Be sure to select the font, size, leading, etc., exactly as before.

When done, click the STOP button. (Black Square)

Open a new photo and test the action by clicking on the "Run" button.
Did it work? What did you leave out?

Once it's perfect, it's ready to go.

From this point on, any time you want a watermarked photo, just run this action.

Batch Watermarking

If you have a whole folder you want Watermarked, proceed to the File Menu and
choose Automate > Batch.

In the resulting dialog is divided into four sections: Play, Source, Destination and Errors.

In the Play section pull down "Action" and select the Action you just created.

In the Source section, click the 'Choose' button and highlight the folder of files you want watermarked. (Hopefully you copied the folder, and will actually be watermarking copies of your files!)

In the Destination section choose "Save and Close"
If you wish to move the newly copied files to a new folder, click Choose... and find the folder.

Are you ready? Click "OK" and sit back. Have coffee. When you get back, your files
will be watermarked.

Questions?

If you'd like to know when the pictorial is launched, then subscribe to the DTG newsletter or leave a note at: Photoshop 911 contact.

Comments

[JSCSG]

I trying to watermark all my photo for better viewing?
Is there Open Source?

[photo restoration]

Excellent tutorial. Splendid and useful. Thanks.

[aruba beach wedding]

i really needed to learn how to do this. thanks for the info

[Peter]

Why not consider easy to use tool for this?
Mytoolsoft batch watermark is a good choice.
you can get it from here: http://www.mytoolsoft.com

[Busby SEO Test]

thanks for those tricks, really works

[Business Cards]

It is really good process. Sometimes you need to save your job and want to put your name. Thanks.

[Rebb]

After hours of pain with Photoshop (I hadn't had any experience with it before), I gave up and made seaarch for "watermark photo". One of the programs I found was watermark factory (http://pickyfiles.com/~i2xy/watermark-photo). This suited me much better. Not Photoshop, but a great tool that worked for me in seconds... Just IMHO...

Anyway, thank you for the tutorial. I'll return to it once I have more complicated things to to my photos than simply batch watermarking...

[Aleksandr Romanenko]

I have figured out the best way to watermark in alignment with ANY size image in photoshop using only 2 additional and simple steps.

after placing the image or typing the text, (make sure the current layer is the one you wish to move) then select all. Once you have selected all then go to the "layers menu", drop down to "Align Layers to Selection" and do as you wish with the alignment.

Because you did a "select all" command it no longer matters which size your image is nor its orientation.

Thank you all for your helpful information, I hope I have been able to help those that needed it.

[luke]

you explained what to do if you your typing your watermark ie create new layer, type in the watermark etc but you didnt run through what to do if you have a logo instead of typing so i am stuck, please can you help

[Jeff]

This has saved me a ton of work but now that I can batch process the watermark, is there anyway to automatically add the file name to the watermark in the batch process? I do some event work and having the file number displayed on the image should make it easier for people when ordering. I appreciate the help.

[Joe]

Wow - Thanks for this! You just saved me hours of work. This is a great tutorial for watermarking!!

-Joe

[ericka]

I have Photoshop 7 and would like to take a group of photos and resize them to a specfic pixel size. I was hoping to automate this process but can't find this option in the automate menu. What I did find offers a pre-set selection of sizes but I want to customize.

Do you have any suggestions on how to do this?

Thanks :)

[Mich Mash]

Thanks for this. I used it on the pictures for my photo blog and I had few problems. Once I figured it all out it went quite smoothly. My hero!

[Steve]

What if the watermark is larger than the image size (on certain images) and you want to put the watermark in the center of the image? Everything I try crops the watermark. I need a way to offset from the edges. I found this option in ImageReady but CS2 doesn't have the ability to offset Horizontally Left AND Right. It is one or the other.

[emily]

how do i get rid of a watermark on an existing picture?

[emily]

how do i get rid of a watermark on an existing photo?

[Trent]

Quote: I found this tutorial very helpful, but still have some questions. Many of my images are different sizes (2098x3147 and 2304x3456). Becuase of this, the watermark turns out perfect on some pics and tiny on others. Is there a way to correct this problem?

Is there a way to do this in Photoshop? I don't want any third party program spammers replying. Thanks.

[Trent]

Quote: I found this tutorial very helpful, but still have some questions. Many of my images are different sizes (2098x3147 and 2304x3456). Becuase of this, the watermark turns out perfect on some pics and tiny on others. Is there a way to correct this problem?

Is there a way to do this in Photoshop? I don't want any third party program spammers replying. Thanks.

[audrie stokes]

Hi, I want to put a watermark picture of my dogs onto A4 and then print the pedigree on top of that, is this what I am talking about?

[Saugata Roy]

Chk out this link:

http://www.photosig.com/articles/1514/article

Cheers.

[lindsey]

I found this tutorial very helpful, but still have some questions. Many of my images are different sizes (2098x3147 and 2304x3456). Becuase of this, the watermark turns out perfect on some pics and tiny on others. Is there a way to correct this problem? Thanks!

[Axl]

the easy way...

1.- create your watermark and save the psd file its recomended merge the layers preserving the transparency.
2.- open new file only to record your actions
3.- the first action, "place" command in file/place, select the psd file with your watermark
4.- ad your copyrigth info file/file info
5.- open save for web and configure your file settings to save
6.- close the image file/close and when ask you to save file just select no

follow the batch watermarking section in this tutorial

This method allow to save time eliminating the step by step actions like the blending, filter, config options, taking only the final watermark, probably you note its fastest this option than the method in this tutorial.

[rob]

I am also having this problem when working with both Portait and Landscape images.

[peter wilson]

the easiest way I've found to watermark a batch of photos is by downloading "picture-shark". It's free and works a treat. Watermarking is all it does.
look it up on google

[Kevin]

Another option for positioning watermarks relative to image edges (rather than positioning them absolutely) is to use Image Ready. (If I'm reading it correctly, the solution explained on equilibrium.com requires their automation software to work).
The place dialog in IR has input boxes for displacement in both directions, and you can choose either of the relevant sides to use as the base for the displacement. For example to put the water mark in the bottom right corner, you would choose 'Right Edge' and 'Bottom Edge' and set both values to -20 to set it out from the corner just a bit.
Otherwise the directions in the tutorial for creating an action are pretty much the same in both Photoshop and Image Ready.
At least in IR 7.0 however, the File > Automate menu item is missing. To get around this, once you have created your action, right click on it in the Actions window and select "Create Droplet". Save the droplet to your desktop. Then, simply drag and drop the files you want to process onto the icon on your desktop.

I've never had much use for Image Ready before, but this seems to do the trick quite nicely.