Watermark type things.. Labels, whatever.

[scelestic]

If you are starting a business you will want to brand yourself and talk to a graphic designer (my dad is a graphic designer and we still haven't gotten that all sorted out yet haha). If its just a hobby then just your name would do. You could use a tablet and sign your name in a program like photoshop and use your signature or pick a font you like. Fonts you should stay away from: comic sans, papyrus, and bleeding cowboy. They are so over used and you would look like everyone else.

Just my 2 cents.  

[girlwiththetude]

I played around with a logo a friend of mine made up.



Most of my other friends were meh with it (I don't get feedback from anyone but them really), so I went back to just a plain text. I also feel like it looks more professional now that it's lighter and not as obscuring of the photo.



And you can move around the text so it's not just a straight line.



Hope this helped!

 

[David2074]

girlwiththetude

Most of my other friends were meh with it (I don't get feedback from anyone but them really), so I went back to just a plain text. I also feel like it looks more professional now that it's lighter and not as obscuring of the photo.

I agree the plain text looks better.
IMO watermarks (even going back to the original on paper watermarks that really were watermarks) should be subtle. They are meant to be an indicator of brand when a person cares to look, not a billboard themselves.

The white example with the cloud is creative but it dominates the photo.
The photo of the moon is basically all black except for the moon. My eyes should be totally drawn to the moon. Instead I find them being drawn back down to the watermark due to the high contrast with the rest of the photo.

What software are you using to physically add the watermark to the photos?
I realize there is various software that can do it, I've just never actually bothered to do it and I'm thinking about starting.
I have photoshop elements but not the full version. And, good grief, I can't even remember the software titles without doing some digging later. Some software that came with my Nikon that I rarely use but keep because it can do more with raw. Most of the time I'm pretty happy with the hi-quality jpg and don't bother editing the raws.  

[girlwiththetude]

David2074

What software are you using to physically add the watermark to the photos?
I realize there is various software that can do it, I've just never actually bothered to do it and I'm thinking about starting.
I have photoshop elements but not the full version. And, good grief, I can't even remember the software titles without doing some digging later. Some software that came with my Nikon that I rarely use but keep because it can do more with raw. Most of the time I'm pretty happy with the hi-quality jpg and don't bother editing the raws.

I ended up using that logo as the logo for my webzine. So, it ended up not going to waste! I could probably fade it out as well, but like the font text a little bit better (and I do play around with different fonts from time to time).

The reason why I did it solid for so long, was my pictures were being stolen. Hell, my labels were edited out from my pictures a few times. scream People do not show respect at all these days. I've had a few friends give proper credit on Tumblr as well, since they're familiar with my work which is nice.

I use Photoshop Elements 5, since I bought it during a digital photography class so I could work on my assignments at home and that was the program we learned with. I'm thinking of upgrading my laptop (it's a 2007 Toshiba hunk of junk) to a Macbook, since most reviews say they're great for photography. Photoshop was also meant for macs, so hopefully it won't constantly freeze like it does on my current laptop. gonk

All you have to do is select the type tool in photoshop. In Elements 5, it's a little T icon. Then move the mouse to the picture and it should look like it would if you were to select an area to type on in word. Then you can select the font/color/size/etc once you've typed whatever you wanted to on the picture. From there you can move the text wherever you desire it to go, and can control if you want it on more than one line, etc. One the right hand side under the layers, the layer with the text will take on the name that's typed in the text. Make sure it's selected, then beside Normal, it has the Opacity option. I just go in and manually type in how see through I want the text to be for a certain image (brighter colors mean less opacity). Hope that made sense! If not, I suppose I could make a quick video tutorial... xd

As for the C for copyright, I have to go to Accessories>System Tools>Character Map, then select the Copy Right logo and copy it to paste into my font window in Photoshop.

biggrin A fellow Nikon user! I rather love how much the color can pop all on it's own from Nikon cameras/lenses. Agreed about the raws, whenever I've tried shooting them, I don't see too much of a difference between them/jpgs. But I do know, they're higher quality for if you plan on selling enlarged prints.  

[David2074]

girlwiththetude

David2074

What software are you using to physically add the watermark to the photos?
I realize there is various software that can do it, I've just never actually bothered to do it and I'm thinking about starting.
I have photoshop elements but not the full version. And, good grief, I can't even remember the software titles without doing some digging later. Some software that came with my Nikon that I rarely use but keep because it can do more with raw. Most of the time I'm pretty happy with the hi-quality jpg and don't bother editing the raws.

I ended up using that logo as the logo for my webzine. So, it ended up not going to waste! I could probably fade it out as well, but like the font text a little bit better (and I do play around with different fonts from time to time).

The reason why I did it solid for so long, was my pictures were being stolen. Hell, my labels were edited out from my pictures a few times. scream People do not show respect at all these days. I've had a few friends give proper credit on Tumblr as well, since they're familiar with my work which is nice.

I use Photoshop Elements 5, since I bought it during a digital photography class so I could work on my assignments at home and that was the program we learned with. I'm thinking of upgrading my laptop (it's a 2007 Toshiba hunk of junk) to a Macbook, since most reviews say they're great for photography. Photoshop was also meant for macs, so hopefully it won't constantly freeze like it does on my current laptop. gonk

All you have to do is select the type tool in photoshop. In Elements 5, it's a little T icon. Then move the mouse to the picture and it should look like it would if you were to select an area to type on in word. Then you can select the font/color/size/etc once you've typed whatever you wanted to on the picture. From there you can move the text wherever you desire it to go, and can control if you want it on more than one line, etc. One the right hand side under the layers, the layer with the text will take on the name that's typed in the text. Make sure it's selected, then beside Normal, it has the Opacity option. I just go in and manually type in how see through I want the text to be for a certain image (brighter colors mean less opacity). Hope that made sense! If not, I suppose I could make a quick video tutorial... xd

As for the C for copyright, I have to go to Accessories>System Tools>Character Map, then select the Copy Right logo and copy it to paste into my font window in Photoshop.

biggrin A fellow Nikon user! I rather love how much the color can pop all on it's own from Nikon cameras/lenses. Agreed about the raws, whenever I've tried shooting them, I don't see too much of a difference between them/jpgs. But I do know, they're higher quality for if you plan on selling enlarged prints.

Thanks. I'm not even sure what version of elements I have. I reckon I should check / possibly update. smile
I figured the procedure was pretty much that.

The copyright symbol is part of the upper ascii so another way to do it is
Alt + 0169 ©
Alternatively, in HTML &_#169; / &_copy; (remove the underscores).
I have not tried the HTML one but the first one works. Just hold down the alt key, type 0169 and let go of the alt key. and you get
©
I used to use that a fair bit in some other work I did.

I almost always leave my camera set on high quality jpg + raw.
The raws take up a lot of space but on 8 & 16 gig SDs I can still take a lot of pictures. I've never filled up a memory card in one event or situation plus it's easy to carry spares. Typically I go back through my pictures after I upload them to my computer and ask myself, "Will I ever want to edit this photo?" Since the answer is usually no I delete the associated raw. I also delete a lot of the jpgs too of course. Especially in rapid shooting. Like if the kids are on the trampoline I might shoot a number of pics to get a couple of cool looking 'in the moment' shots and delete the others.

Here is perhaps a good example about the difference in the amount of data stored in raw vs jpg (besides the obvious file size).
I took some pictures at a dance. I don't have a good area flash, only the flash built in to my D90. In a couple of the pictures this guy in a white shirt was near the camera and he is just about all that shows in the photo. The rest of the photo is black even though I know there are a bunch of people there.

In the jpg version, I can adjust brightness and contrast all I want and the majority of the picture is still black or 'not there'.
Next I tried working with the raw. For fun I just hit auto adjust and the rest of the room full of people showed up. To look at either picture before adjusting you'd think the camera just failed to capture them but they are there.