To watermark or not to watermark… that is actually NOT the question for this blog post. I am going to jump in and assume that you would like to watermark your images and that you have Photoshop Elements. Never fear if you do not have Photoshop Elements, I have a few other ideas about file storage that I’ll share first.
How do you store your quilt project information? There is no one right or wrong way, but I thought I’d share a bit of my file organization techniques, which does tie in beautifully for the wrapup watermarking information I will present.
I have 2 hard drives in my computer. My main hard drive is where all the programs are installed and what is needed to run and “boot” my PC. My second hard drive is just for file storage, and it is a 1 terabyte drive. I have a directory on my secondary hard drive called “Quilts”. Within that directory, there is one folder for each quilt that I have made that I have photographs or information on. I number each directory (so I know the order I made the quilts in) and I also name the quilt within the directory. For instance, a peak inside looks something like this:
Let’s take a look inside my Triangle Transparency directory.
At the top level of the project directory I store my raw, full size images. In each project file, I also always create 2 other sub-directories: “small” and “wm”. When I have finished editing a full size image, I resize the image down to something smaller that I will use to upload to my blog. I typically resize down to 900px on the longest size. Once the images are resized, I move the smaller files into the “wm” directory, where “wm” stands for watermark.
Within Photoshop Elements, there is an option under the File > menu called “Process Multiple Files”. Note that I have a very old version of Photoshop Elements (version 8), but my husband owns an almost new version and it is the same there, so just know that it might look a bit different for you.
The Process Multiple Files menu allows you to easily and quickly watermark a group of photos within a directory.
Simply browse to your directory that contains the images that you would like to watermark (but ONLY the images that you want to watermark – it will go through all the images in the directory, so take care!). I have found that using a text size of 8 and an opacity of 75% gives a watermark that I am happy with. The text of the watermark is up to you, I like to use my brand name (quilting JETgirl, like my logo) along with the copy-write symbol and year. I also use the same font for my watermark that is used for my logo on my blog.
***NOTE*** Always double check the color of your watermark before hitting OK on this menu. Whatever the last color you used within Photoshop will appear there. Thankfully, if you are following the directory format I describe, you can always delete the watermarked images, make new smaller images, and try again if something goes awry.
Once my photos are watermarked, I removed them from the “wm” directory and store them in the “small” directory.
There are other free online tools that can be used to watermark your images. I don’t have any personal experience with them, so I will ask those of you that do have knowledge to please share information on what you like to use or would recommend in the comments. đŸ™‚
Please , will you come live in our house , if only for a few weeks ?
I am so bad at remembering this step even though I use Lightroom and its a complete doddle to do it there! New years resolution for 2016!
What is Lightroom?
I’m with Helen, except I don’t even have photoshop so it wouldn’t do any good for you to come to my house.
Thanks for the tut! I think your organization makes this a simple step in the process.
I mostly use Adobe Photo Shop, and watermarking each and every photo takes time! I know there has to be a way to add it to every photo I want! Always learning, aren’t we?!
BTW…I always appreciate being reminded about this!
You are not going to believe this but I was going to e-mail you this week to ask about how you watermark your images. I wonder if there is a way I can do this using Picasa. I have PhotoShop Elements, I think. But I’m absolute crap at using it. Thanks for the tutorial. I might consider cracking open the PSE.
Thanks for the tips. I’ve been using PicMonkey and not 100% happy. Not sure I’m ready to splash out the money for Photoshop Elements.
That is pretty efficient. I am lazy about watermarking. I don’t use a year or my url. When I do get my act together I use pixlr (which is a free photo editor, similar tools to basic photoshop that I use for editing as well), and add my watermark image as another layer, then just tweak the placement and opacity depending on the image I’m watermarking.
It is so interesting seeing how you organize the files. I add my blog name to my photos in the simple Paint program on my computer after I re-size my photos. I can’t make the text transparent like yours, but I figure it is better than nothing.
I use actions in Photoshop to automate a very basic and lazy watermark, but it ends up in a different spot and a different size depending on how I crop an image. I really should pay more attention to resizing images, but after years of discarding low-res images as unsuitable to print, I struggle to compress for the web as I should.
My life is generally tidy, unless you look in my sewing patterns and inspiration folder on my computer. Why does that chaos not look like my tidy kitchen cupboards or my neatly organised work files? Yours are so neat!
I know most quilters seem to watermark, mostly I am concerned about photos associated with tutorials and the occasional quilt which I am proud of. I have looked at Lightroom, which I may get when I upgrade my computer next, but currently I use Aviary via flickr to add my blog name (and rarely any fancy text, just the default). It’s one at a time, but as I said it’s only one or two photos per post, and I’m not blogging enough to worry about it.
Yvonne, this is so helpful in more ways than one. Thank you for the actual tutorial, but also for giving us a glimpse at you file storage method. Will give this a try!
That seems like such a better way to do watermarking. I don’t have photoshop so I have to upload every picture to a photo editor (I use Ribbet since I can use my own fonts) and add it to each photo. Yes, it’s a pain in the butt but it is what it is.
I’m quite lazy with watermarking too, and only tend to do it for certain images, especially since I use Picmonkey and, unless I’m missing something, have to do each one individually. You are unbelievably organised with your files! Is everything in your home/life so organised or do little corners of chaos sneak in to certain places?!
Okay, maybe there’s hope that I will do this! Your organizational system, and being able to process in batches, may be the keys I need. There is no way I would process one by one. Thanks, Yvonne!