Lightroom 2 - Advanced Watermarking

[drg]

Tired of switching to another program to add something other than the bland lower left no user controlled scalability watermark in ADOBE Lightroom ?? You can even use this for web posting or for slide show contents!

Well there's now a solution! (All notes are for PC version, I'll Mac-translate if needed) You will need to log in to see the illustrations/image samples.

First you need to create an Identity Plate or a graphic that you want to use as your watermark. As noted in the Lightroom 2, Tips, Tricks, and Techniques post, the creation of an Identity Plate is quite easy and allows for use of any True Type font

I. An Identity Plate is easily created by selecting Identity Plate Setup from the Edit menu in the Library Module.

Ia. If you wish to use a graphic (see the colored example below) you will need to create an appropriate sized JPEG format of your logo. Just be sure you know where you saved it!

II. After having finished appropriate editing via Develop module, go to the Print Module.

III. Select the Identity Plate (a checkmark will appear in the box) from the Overlay box in the right Panel of the Print Module.

IIIa. Then you can select Opacity and Scale and Color and Rotation for the Identity Plate which will appear on the face of your image in the middle of the image display.

IIIb. If you uncheck Render on every image, then you can drag the Identity Plate box around to whatever location on the image that you want! Voila' - a fancied up watermark! It will even be transparent or 'behind' the image if you desire based on additional settings.

IIIc. During the creation of the Identity Plate there is also the option to use a graphic. If you want to use a custom logo or a non text image select that option and select the JPEG file mentioned in step Ia previously.

[ The following steps do not include all of the details about other print settings. The WYSIWYG interface will at least give the user and idea of initial output. In the case of step IVa. the output will be immediately available for review]

IV. The photo now is set to Print .

IVa. If the photograph is for display, either via a slide show, a web site, or other non printed version Lightroom 2 adds a new feature called Print to JPEG. There is a Print to File... button at the bottom of the right panel in the Print module.

NOTE: The user will have to adjust output sizes and dpi to produce smaller files, if desired, for web use. If a supported printer allows 'borderless' printing then the margins (white borders) will not have to be included. I used a 50 pixel margin and a 1.3pt grey stroke border to illustrate. The user can even specify 'crop' marks and export the file and then reimport if they wish to have no border or add a different treatment else where in Lightroom.

The following examples are of:
- the original watermark beginning with LR 1.0 and still available
- a rotated colored watermark
- a large banner watermark
- and a colored graphic logo.


[All work on the original file performed in Lightroom 2.0.]

[NoKnees]

Hi DRG, timely and well written post...

The last two days I have been playing with LR 2.0 lately and getting familiar with the basic watermarking and liked what I saw in this version. It got me thinking about what else you can do with this feature..

Around the same time I wanted to find an easy way to add frames to my photos too, without the need to leave Lightroom. After a little searching and playing around, found the solution for this too, using graphic Identity Plates... You can create a boarder in Photoshop, or something similar, keep the center transparent, save it as a .png .tif or what'ev... Use this as an overlay like your watermark.. You can rotate, scale, etc... Works nice... Found some borders online that at least let me play with the idea... Now I just need to make some decent borders that I actually like...

Proof of concept here... All done in Lightroom, printed to jpeg, then rotated and resized for the web...



- G

[drg]

Nice example! This is indeed one of the capabilities now available with LR2.x (Release Candidate 2.1 available at this writing).

Having a library of potential frames also aids in 'proofing' for how the final product may appear! Color and proportion can be a costly set of options! I've used a couple of different solutions to look at style of framing and it looks like with a little bit of PS work I can build all that into the LR workflow as well!!

Thanks again for adding your experiences to this topic.

[gahspidy]

Great, I had been playing around with the idea of adding borders and frames in LR2 and this is a good example of what can be done. Great thread, drg.
good example and nice work noknees

[spudeey]

I can't even find the identity plate set up :/.
If anyone could make a video tutorial for this that would be outstanding

[Quadracer041]

I know this thread is way old but im trying to add my watermark and when I print to file it also saves the white margins left on the page that the photo doesn't cover. How do I get rid of that?

[SmartWombat]

Wow, why are you printing to file?
I use the watermarking option in the Export options, so I can export a JPG file with watermark.

Have you selected the borderless option in printing, and does your image aspect ratio exactly match the paper aspect ratio?

[Quadracer041]

Cause i'm a rookie, lol. Just been youtubing how to stuff for lightroom 2 and that was one one to do it. The thing I like about doing it in the print modual and slideshow modual is that the identity pane is very adjustable as far as size and opacity. I downloaded Mogrify so I can watermark on export but you have to have the watermark set up the way you want it before u import it.

[SmartWombat]

Well there is no one right way of doing it, there's so many
I looked at it logically (to my mind) and set up the watermarking where I wanted it - in the export.
Specifically in the 800x600 forum export, not in the full size export for printing.
I don't use the printing module much at all, because all my printing is from exports direct to the lab online.