TGIF!! Our awesome Photoshop workshop instructor, Lisa Harrison will be showcasing different little tips and tricks, picture plays, photo fixes, tutorials and so much more each week here on the blog. Our members are able to submit questions for her and she might choose their question to answer in her post – so fun. You’re also welcome to submit questions in the comments section if there’s a topic you would like Lisa to cover. You’ll have to keep checking back each week to see what she does next!
Photoshop Friday | Creating a Watermark Brush
Continuing on with what I said last week, that time is money and the main goal is to speed up your workflow, I wanted to do a quick tutorial on how to create a watermark in Photoshop and then turn it into a brush.
The first step is to create a new blank document. To do that go to file > new
You will get the following dialog box. Enter 1 for the height and 3 for the width and 300 for the resolution. Then press ok.
Now you will see a blank document. Click on the text tool to add your text to the document. Choose black from the color picker. When you do this, you will see a new text layer in the layers palette.
Once you’ve entered your text, you want to select all. You can do this by going to select > all or by pressing ctrl + a on PC or cmd + a on a Mac.
Once you’ve done this, you will have marching ants around your selection (which is the entire document).
Next, you want to go to edit > define brush preset
And you’ll get a dialog box that prompts you to give your brush a name
Name it, in this case I name it CM Rocks and press ok. Now you want to deselect your selection. You can do this by going to select > deselect or by pressing ctrl + d on PC or cmd + d on a Mac.
Now you’re ready to use your watermark brush. Open a photo, create a new blank layer by clicking on the new layer icon in the layers panel or by pressing shift + ctrl + n on a PC and shift + cmd + n on a Mac.
Click on the brush icon from the toolbar or simply press B on your keyboard for your brush tool and right click to get your brush palette to open up. Choose your brush from the list. You can also go the menu option bar across the top of the screen and choose your brush from there.
Now that you have your brush selected and a new blank layer, you can make the brush any color you want by using the color picker, you can adjust the layer opacity, as well as the brush opacity and you can move the watermark around using the move tool.
When you have the move tool selected, make sure you have show transform controls checked in the menu options bar. This gives you handles around your watermark, allowing you to resize it. Holding down the shift key while resizing will keep your watermark proportionate.
When you’re all done, choose flatten image.
Here is our photo with our watermark:
If you want to use your logo, you can. Simply open your logo and follow the steps above.
Now that you’ve created your watermark why not go a step further and create an action? You can refer to last week’s tutorial on Creating an Action in Photoshop. Happy watermarking!
Lisa Harrison is a self-taught Vermont Photographer. She shoots with a Canon 5D Mark II and a variety of lenses, including macro, fish eye, lens baby and a variety of fast primes. She specializes in newborn photography but enjoys photographing her children and everyday life as well. She uses Photoshop CS5 for the majority of her work and Lightroom 3 for processing her RAW files. She teaches Photoshop Workshops here at ClickinMoms. The next run of Processing 101: Photoshop Fundamentals for Photographers begins on January 16, 2012.
My “watermark” has yellow and red in it. Is there a way to make a brush with those included? Maybe with the pattern? Thx!
Hi Angel! Unfortunately the watermark you create from your logo will not be your logo colors. The brush that is created should show separation though— from the lighter/darker colors. She on the attached photo how Lisa is lighter than Harrison? It’s b/c Lisa is teal and Harrison is brown. I hope that helps.
Thanks so much! This is great!
Thanks for the tutorial! I’ve been trying to figure out how to do this so this post is perfect timing. :)
Thanks so much I was just trying to learn how to do a water mark more automatically !
Wow. Thank you, Lisa!!! I have been adding my jpg logo to images, which is a PIA. So I’m so happy to have found this tutorial today!! Thank you!!
It never occurred to me to create a watermark brush! I’ve created brushes before and have my watermark as an action so I just have to hit “play” but it never occurred to me to do it that way! Thanks!
I’m glad you girls enjoyed it and you’re welcome. If there is anything you’d like to see, please request it here :)
Hey Lisa is there a tut here for how to batch process with that watermark? =D I’d Love to know..thanks for this!
Thank you!! This is amazing! I just did this today and it is going to save me so much time!!!
Great web site. Lots of helpful info here. I am sending it to some pals ans additionally sharing in delicious. And naturally, thank you on your sweat!
Thank you, I’ve recently been looking for information approximately this topic for a long time and yours is the greatest I’ve discovered till now. However, what about the conclusion? Are you positive about the supply?|What i don’t understood is actually how you’re now not actually much more well-favored than you may be now. You are so intelligent.
Lisa,
Thanks very much for this tutorial. I’ve been playing with watermarks all afternoon. I am trying to create a version of my logo that has a 50% white band in the background. This is not translating to the brush watermark. Am I doing something wrong, or is it not possible?
Thanks,
Amy