Watermark Photos the Fast & Easy Way: Welcome to the 158th Metamorphosis Monday!

Watermarking photos...that's a big metamorphosis I've just recently started making to photos you see here on BNOTP.  In the past I never worried too much about placing a watermark on the photos I post.  I loved it when folks used a photo and linked back to BNOTP.

But recently readers of BNOTP have e-mailed me with links to  tablescapes and other photos showing up on professional websites as their own.  My pics have even turned up in eBay ads.  I think often it's done in error, or at least I'd like to think so, but either way I knew it was time to get busy watermarking the photos I take and post.

There are lots of tools available for watermarking pictures, but today I'm going to share the two I like using.  If you have a system you love, please share it in a comment.  It's so wonderful when we can share and help each other.

Watermark Option #1:  Watermark in Live Writer, Cost: Free
Do you create your posts in Live Writer?  If not, you may want to download Live Writer (LW) and give it a whirl.    LW is a very popular program for creating blog posts and once it's created, you can send the draft to Blogger or publish it to your blog.  LW was really popular before Blogger updated their posting process.  Now that creating a post in Blogger is a lot like creating one in LW, I'm not sure if  LW is still that popular with those who post on the Blogger platform.  A lot of folks who have Word Press blogs do still use LW.

If you use Live Writer for creating your blog posts, you may already know you can watermark your photos in this program.  I knew you could watermark your photos in LW, but I didn't know there was an "automatic" preset option for that.  I had been doing it one photo at the time which took forever.  Ugh.  That's how I came to find my other favorite way to watermark pics...but more on that in a sec.

Thanks to Kristi who blogs at Addicted 2 Decorating, I recently found out it's possible to set LW where it automatically watermarks every photo you upload to a post.  Yay!  Did you know you could do that?  I had no idea.  I was thrilled to discover this and may go back to creating my posts in LW to take advantage of this feature.

Here's how watermarking in Live Writer works:
To watermark photos in Live Writer, you upload a photo to the post you're creating in LW.  Once the pic is loaded to the post, click on the photo and a "format" menu appears where you'll see the "watermark" option. (Note the yellow arrow below pointing up at the word, "watermark."

Click on the watermark option and a screen will open up where you'll type your "text" watermark, pick a font style and the size you want your watermark to be.  That's it.

Note:  Live Writer will not allow you to upload and save a "custom" watermark that you or a graphic designer has created.  It just lets you add "text" watermarks to your photos.

Now, here's the awesome part...the part I just found out you can do when using Live Writer to watermark photos.

If you don't want to watermark every single photo individually, which takes forever, you can click on "Set to default."  (Note the other yellow arrow in the photo below.)  If your default watermark ends up covering something in your photo, click on the photo, then click on "watermark" and you can choose to move the location of your watermark for that one photo.

You can also remove a watermark on a photo by clicking "Revert to original" which is above the "set to default" option or by clicking on the photo, selecting watermark and deleting the text in the box.  That will come in handy if a photo gets watermarked that you don't want watermarked.

If you don't use Live Writer to create your posts for your Blogger or Word Press blogs, check out Watermark Option #2 below for watermarking your pics.

(Click on any pictures below to enlarge)


Watermark Option #2:  Visual Watermark, Cost: $20...a one time charge

Since I didn't realize you could set Live Writer to automatically watermark all photos when they are uploaded, I went in search of another way to watermark my pics.  I spent one evening trying out a lot of watermarking tools before I found Visual Watermark.  I'm not trying to sell you on VW...I'll just share how it works and how it's different from watermarking via Live Writer.  You can compare it to the system you currently use, as well.  Visual Watermark isn't free...it costs $20 which is a one time charge.

How Visual Watermark is different from watermarking with Live Writer:
Here are a few of things that Visual Watermark does that you can't do with Live Writer:  1. You can have a custom watermark created by a graphic designer (or create your own) then save it to VW to use as your watermark.  2. You can create and save multiple watermarks in different sizes, colors, font's etc... in VW to use for future watermarking sessions (more on that in a sec)  3. You can watermark a gazillion photos in seconds because you can watermark in batches and it will save your watermarked pics to a folder of your choosing for future use as needed.

Here's how Visual Watermark works:
It's a fast process to watermark using VW, but this tutorial may make it seem complex because I've broken the process down into such detail, including how to edit a watermark after it's in place.  So don't let this tutorial make you think it's complicated...it's not.

For our example today, we'll watermark 4 photos of a Valentine's Days table setting, as if I were planning to use them in a post.   To watermark the photos in VW, you first open up the VW watermarking program on your computer.  See the white section there on the left.  That's where we'll upload or drag the pics we wish to watermark.  I love the drag method...it's so fast.

To upload pics to Visual Watermark, you just highlight all 4 photos by clicking Control-A and then just drag them over to the white section of the VW screen.  You can drag 1 or 100...however many you wish.  Or you can click on "+ADD" and upload as many as you wish at one time from a file on your computer.  I prefer the drag method since it's so fast and easy.

Here's how it looks when all 4 photos are in Visual Watermark.  The first photo is highlighted on the left, so that's why you are seeing that photo visible on the right.

Because I've already been working in Visual Watermark for a couple of weeks, I've have already created several watermarks in different sizes and colors.  Next we'll just click on the down arrow in the menu and  select "Open" which opens up all the saved watermarks.  (If you wish to create a new watermark, you click on "New Watermark.")

You can tell the watermarks I've created because I've named them all  BNOTP.  I've created some gray watermarks and some white watermarks.  Gray comes in handy when the picture is really white at the bottom where I like to place my watermark.  I've also created them in different sizes to better fit some of the photo sizes I upload. Oh, by the way, VW also has lots of fancy, unusual watermarks you can use...you'll see those options listed below, too.

Once I select the watermark, it looks like this below.  See how it's kind of covering the plate since the watermark is on the right.  If I wish, I could create a separate watermark and save it for when I wish to watermark pics on the left.  Then I could just click on it in the list above and use it, instead.  You can save as many different watermarks as you wish.

 But let's pretend I haven't saved a left sided watermark.  No problem, I can just edit this one.  To do that, I just click on "edit" at the top of the screen.

This box opens up with lots of options for editing the watermark.  I can select to move it to the right, center it, move it to the top or place it in the middle of the photo.  In this case, I chose to move it from the right side... (note the arrow)

...to the left side. (note the arrow)

Then I just click on "apply changes" and here's how it looks once it's been moved.

Now I'm ready to tell Visual Watermark to watermark all the photos as I've indicated.  Before I watermark them, I can click on each pic in the white box on the left and see how the watermark is going to look once its been added.

When I click on the word "Watermark" (note arrow) a box pops up and gives me several options.  I can tell it to watermark all the original photos OR to watermark copies and save them in a separate file within the main file, or anywhere I wish on my computer.

One of the cool things about VW is the ability to watermark in batches.  If needed, I could have dragged/uploaded 50 photos over to VW and when I clicked on "Watermark" it would watermark all 50 in seconds.  Sometimes I'll drag over the vertical pics and watermark them.  Then I'll drag over the horizontal pics and watermark them.  I've found the vertical and horizontal pics look better with different size watermarks.  It took me a few sessions to get used to the program but now I can watermark a bunch of pics in a matter of a couple of minutes, if that long.

I don't recommend watermarking your "original" photos because you may wish to use them one day somewhere without the watermark.  I always choose the option of watermarking and saving copies in a separate file. (see below)

When I click OK, here's how the file on my computer looks now.  You see my original 4 photos that are still left unmarked and then there's the file I have named WM that contains the same 4 photos but with watermarks.  This will come in handy later if I wish to use the watermarked photos again in another post.  They will be here watermarked and waiting.

As mentioned above, you can watermark your photos with anything you wish, including an image or a professionally designed watermark.  Just playing around, I downsized my blog button and uploaded it to VM and watermarked a few pics.

Update: I decided I much prefer Visual Watermark for my watermaking of photos.  Live Writer does screwy stuff with my pics.  If I upload them to Live Writer and Watermark them, then send the post as a draft to my blog, if I alter the size of my pics once they are in Blogger, they become out of focus.  Since I enjoy posting larger pics and frequently alter the size, I do all my watermarking in Visual Watermark now.  Best $20 I ever spent on my blog!  I'm considering having a custom watermark made and I love knowing I can upload that to VW and use it there, if I do.  Plus, Visual Watermark has tools you can use to make some fun watermarks.

Pinning:
A few folks have asked if it's okay to pin these posts...yes, please do!  You many pin anything you see here at BNOTP, even if I don't have it watermarked, yet.  I hope to eventually get all my pics watermarked...but that may take a while.  So pin away and enjoy. ♥

If you find this tutorial or any of the other shown below to be helpful, so appreciate if you'll give them a +1 in Google!  Thanks in advance!

Looking for more blogging tips?  Check out these posts:
14 Free Photo Editing Sites
9 Tips for Better Blog Photos
Make a Blog Button for Your Blog
Label Photos for Pinterest
Type Accent Marks, Currency/Math Symbols & Unique Punctuation for Blog Posts

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Metamorphosis Monday:
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