bdjohns1
May 19, 07, 3:29 pm
Ok - I've got to give credit to this technique to Russell Brown (russellbrown.com), one of the guys who actually works on Photoshop - I adapted this from a video tutorial on his site. The video is about 17 minutes longer than it needs to be, so this is the shorter version.
I'm doing this using PS CS3, but it should work at least back to CS (the version the video tutorial came from), and it might work on PS7 too.
1) Create a new blank document. Size/resolution don't matter.
2) Use the text tool to create your watermark. If you're really ambitious, you can use a program like Adobe Illustrator to create a logo watermark. The only requirement is that you need to be able to make it into a path.
3) Right click on the text layer, and select "Create Work Path", then go to the paths palette, select the work path, and copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl-C)
4) Open one of your photos to use as a template. Doesn't matter what size it is, or whether it's portrait or landscape orientation. From this point on, this is the only document we're using.
5) Start recording an action (New Action button in the actions palette).
6) Do File -> Automate -> Fit Image to resize the picture. Enter the same dimensions in both boxes (ie 800 x 800) - it will resize the image to fit inside an 800x800 box, so portrait or landscape images will work. You could do 1024x1024 if you want, or any arbitrary image size)
7) Create a new blank layer and select the layer.
8) Stop recording the macro.
9) Paste the work path onto the new layer. Move it to the upper-left corner of the image using Edit -> Free Transform Path. Once that's done, exit Free Transform mode (the checkbox in the toolbar)
10) Restart recording the macro (record button in the Actions palette).
11) In the Actions palette, there should be a little button for a menu drop-down in the upper right corner. In that menu, choose "Insert Path". Now, the path information will be contained in the action itself.
12) Resize the path to the size you want in the image, again using Edit -> Free Transform Path.
13) In the Paths palette, choose "Convert path to selection".
14) Use Edit -> Fill to fill the path with a color (I use black). Now, you've got real text filled in.
15) Clear your selection (Ctrl-D or Select -> Deselect)
16) Select the entire layer (Ctrl-A or Select -> All)
17) Use the Layer -> Align Layers to Selection options (top, bottom, left, right, centered, etc) to position the watermark in whatever corner you'd like. I do bottom left.
18) Right click on the layer (in the Layers palette) and choose "Blending Options" Here, you can play around and create a style for your text. My watermark basically has the opacity set to 0%, uses Bevel and Emboss to emboss the text, and a small bit of yellow "outer glow" to make it pop on darker images
19) Flatten the image (Layer -> Flatten Image)
20) Stop recording the action, and save the action using the Actions drop-down menu you used in step 11.
I've got a copy of my action at http://ben-johnson.org/ftupload/BenWaterMark.atn if you'd like to download and examine it.
Hope this is helpful to everyone. Let me know if you've got any questions about the steps.
I use this action with the Image Processor script in Adobe Bridge to batch-process a bunch of images.
I'm doing this using PS CS3, but it should work at least back to CS (the version the video tutorial came from), and it might work on PS7 too.
1) Create a new blank document. Size/resolution don't matter.
2) Use the text tool to create your watermark. If you're really ambitious, you can use a program like Adobe Illustrator to create a logo watermark. The only requirement is that you need to be able to make it into a path.
3) Right click on the text layer, and select "Create Work Path", then go to the paths palette, select the work path, and copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl-C)
4) Open one of your photos to use as a template. Doesn't matter what size it is, or whether it's portrait or landscape orientation. From this point on, this is the only document we're using.
5) Start recording an action (New Action button in the actions palette).
6) Do File -> Automate -> Fit Image to resize the picture. Enter the same dimensions in both boxes (ie 800 x 800) - it will resize the image to fit inside an 800x800 box, so portrait or landscape images will work. You could do 1024x1024 if you want, or any arbitrary image size)
7) Create a new blank layer and select the layer.
8) Stop recording the macro.
9) Paste the work path onto the new layer. Move it to the upper-left corner of the image using Edit -> Free Transform Path. Once that's done, exit Free Transform mode (the checkbox in the toolbar)
10) Restart recording the macro (record button in the Actions palette).
11) In the Actions palette, there should be a little button for a menu drop-down in the upper right corner. In that menu, choose "Insert Path". Now, the path information will be contained in the action itself.
12) Resize the path to the size you want in the image, again using Edit -> Free Transform Path.
13) In the Paths palette, choose "Convert path to selection".
14) Use Edit -> Fill to fill the path with a color (I use black). Now, you've got real text filled in.
15) Clear your selection (Ctrl-D or Select -> Deselect)
16) Select the entire layer (Ctrl-A or Select -> All)
17) Use the Layer -> Align Layers to Selection options (top, bottom, left, right, centered, etc) to position the watermark in whatever corner you'd like. I do bottom left.
18) Right click on the layer (in the Layers palette) and choose "Blending Options" Here, you can play around and create a style for your text. My watermark basically has the opacity set to 0%, uses Bevel and Emboss to emboss the text, and a small bit of yellow "outer glow" to make it pop on darker images
19) Flatten the image (Layer -> Flatten Image)
20) Stop recording the action, and save the action using the Actions drop-down menu you used in step 11.
I've got a copy of my action at http://ben-johnson.org/ftupload/BenWaterMark.atn if you'd like to download and examine it.
Hope this is helpful to everyone. Let me know if you've got any questions about the steps.
I use this action with the Image Processor script in Adobe Bridge to batch-process a bunch of images.