Tutorial 3
Safeguard your images against theft and sign your artworks. Lauren Scott shows you how to add watermarks to your images
Safeguard images against theft and sign your work with a watermark
the Mission
To add text or image watermarks to photos
Time needed
15 minutes
Skill level
Easy
Kit needed
Lightroom 5 or later
Watermarks are a constant source of debate, but whether you love or loathe them, they certainly aren’t a new concept. Even before the digital age, photographers and publishers would use print stamps on the back of images to identify the source. Embossing seals were even used to raise a mark on the print. More recently, you might have seen commercial photographers using a watermark when sending clients proofs of their images. These are usually small enough so that the image can still be seen, but they disrupt it so that it can’t be easily printed.
We live in a world where all our photos are displayed and available online, and this creates a worry in terms of image copyright. Apart from protecting your photos from theft, adding a watermark is an effective way to market yourself, and make your shots easily identifiable to potential customers. A watermark is also simply a way to sign your art, much like a landscape painter would have done on the corner of the canvas. So, whether you want to use a watermark to sign your final artworks, or as a way to protect them online, we’ve got you covered. Find out how, using Lightroom…