Tricks Of The Trade: How To Create and Watermark Your Images

Say you are a blogger and come upon an exclusive image.

You want to post it on your site, but all the scum buckets out there will just copy it and claim it as their own.

So what do you do?

You watermark it.

Basically that means you take — say your logo — make it transparent and put it on top the image.

Here’s how I do it:

Download this FREE image manipulation program: The Gimp. It’s awesome. Forget paying for Photoshop, The Gimp has everything you need.

Once you have that installed, open up your logo and the image (FILE –> OPEN).

So you will have two images opened on your desktop.

I’ll use these two images, “image file” (credit: CBN’s Chris “The Doc” Bushley) and “logo file” (but enlarged):

On the logo file go to EDIT –> COPY (or Ctrl-C).

Then go over to the image file and go to EDIT –> PASTE AS NEW LAYER (important!)

Your image should appear in the top left corner.

Now, you can move it wherever you want with the “MOVE TOOL,” which is found in the “Toolbox.” 

Then just go to FILE –> SAVE. Save it as a “imagefilename.jpg” or even “imagefilename.png” (png is better quality, but larger file size).

That’s the quick way if you already have the two images all set. And if your logo file isn’t transparent, it’s not really a “watermark,” but gets the job done.

But what if the scum bucket knows how to manipulate the image and cuts around your watermark?

Then you will need to make the logo transparent, as you don’t want it covering the image, which ticks people off, but you still want to give your site credit.

Repeat the above steps, but instead of saving, do the following:

If the “Layer Window” is not already opened on your desktop, click Ctrl-L. That should bring up a box where you should see the Layers window.

You will see the logo file layer in the Layers window. Make sure it is selected/highlighted. Should turn blue and/or grey.

Next on the Toolbox window, choose the “Eraser.” Click on it and more options will be revealed below it.

Set the “Opacity” to however much transparency you want on your logo file. 

Set the “Scale” to a large number as that’s the size of the brush.

Then left click and hold. Brush over the logo file making sure the left mouse button is held down the entire time, or the logo file will not look right.

The logo image should be see though and you can now move it wherever you like with the MOVE TOOL,” which is found in the “Toolbox.” 

Then just save as mentioned above.

There are a few more tricks you can do as well. Like I can take the black color out of the logo file, with COLORS –> COLOR TO ALPHA.

Or if you need more than one color taken out, you can manually erase around the image using the ERASER.

You can do the same with text if you don’t have an image as well.

I would also recommend saving the watermark logo as a separate file for later use. Select the layer in the LAYERS window, then go to EDIT –> COPY. Then EDIT –> PASTE AS –> NEW Image. Save the new file as a .png to retain transparency.

If you mess up use Ctrl-Z to undo; Ctrl-Y is redo.

Any questions, hit me up in the comments below and I’ll try to help out.

1. Open image file

2. Open logo file

3. Copy logo file

4. paste logo file as new layer on to image file

5. set opacity and scale on the logo file

6. brush over logo file to create transparency

7. move logo to desired position

8. save