Watermarking in Lightroom

[mindspan]

Hi folks,
What I am trying to accomplish is to take a batch of let's say 200 photos, and create a web gallery with them from Lightroom... all with a PROOF watermark on them in large enough letters to dissuade customers from printing them direct from the web while not opaque enough to discourage purchase.

I can certainly use the built in watermark but this seems to only create a small copyright notice in the bottom left hand corner with whatever text you define. This is insufficient. Am I missing something, or am I going to have to create a Photoshop action to do this?

Cheers,
Ray

 

[dmwphoto]

????
What exactly are you looking for???

 

[mindspan]

????
What exactly are you looking for???

Um... I think the above is pretty clear; but to restate, I want some way of creating a large 'PROOF' text overlay on each image using a batch process... preferably one from directly within Lightroom.

Otherwise, I suppose I will have to create a Photoshop action.

 

[dmwphoto]

It is clear what you are saying but I fail to understand why. Are your images stolen regularly?

 

[Paul Beiser]

See here: http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00KAeE

 

[mindspan]

Let's say you are shooting a sports event... you get some great shots and after the game you market them to the participants by giving them your card and telling them that shots of the game will be on the website that night where they can order them. People may like the shots, and just take a screenshot of the web gallery, crop out the small watermark that Lightroom puts on and you get nothing.

People are often satisfied with very crappy resolution when they are printing on their own... or they might just save the image and email it around to their relatives. This practice would be circumvented if it had a large, noticable, but not too obtrusive watermark in the middle of the photo.

 

[mindspan]

See here: http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00KAeE

Thanks Paul -- that was informative but disappointing. Hopefully this will be something they implement in 2.0 as it seems an obvious oversight, especially given this functionality is in the print module.

 

[Kiwi Geoff]

Yes Ray, your requested feature is something that is asked frequently. Hopefully soon it will happen.

 

[haze2]

Ray, check out the April/May issue of Photoshop User. There is a great article that explains exactly how to do what you are asking. You can use the standard copyright icon, your company logo, or whatever. You create an action that automatically centers the watermark on photos of any size or orientation. The article then refers you to a NAPP member link that shows you how to batch process the action for a large number of photos. It's done in Photoshop, not Lightroom, but it's exactly what you are asking for.



haze

 

[mindspan]

Ray, check out the April/May issue of Photoshop User. There is a great article that explains exactly how to do what you are asking. You can use the standard copyright icon, your company logo, or whatever. You create an action that automatically centers the watermark on photos of any size or orientation. The article then refers you to a NAPP member link that shows you how to batch process the action for a large number of photos. It's done in Photoshop, not Lightroom, but it's exactly what you are asking for.
haze

Thanks for the tip! I have already created an action to do this; however, it is not as sophisticated as what you describe. I'll have to check it out :smile:

Ray