Adding a watermark can help you get recognition every time you share your photos. Anywhere your photos are shared, people see your name or logo with it. Your photos act as a tool for your marketing. In today’s post, we see how we can watermark photos in Lightroom. Check out the video below:

You can watermark photos in Lightroom, only when exporting them out of Lightroom. So, the first thing you would need to do is to go to the Export dialog. You can do that by clicking on the Export button on the left side, in the Library module.

In the Export panel, come to the Watermark tab and switch on the Watermark checkbox, and then select your watermark from the dropdown. There is a pre-existing one created by Lightroom called “Simple Copyright Watermark”; You can actually go ahead and create your own by clicking on this “Edit Watermarks” option.

This opens the Watermark editor. Over here you can add either simple text; or a graphic and choose how it will look.

Watermark Photos in Lightroom with a Text Based Watermark

If you want to keep things simple, and just have a text based watermark, let’s say your name,  you can select the “Text” option from the top right, from the “Watermark Style” option. You can type your text in the text box at the bottom.  And you will see its preview on the photograph.

We can change some of the settings from the options  on the right. We can change its font from this Font and Style dropdown, we can change its color by clicking on the Swatch and then picking out a color,  then below that you have some settings if you want to give your text any kind of Shadow. You might want to add the shadow where the photo might have something of the same color right behind the watermark; and the watermark might not be visible without the shadow.

Now, these settings below the Shadow, i.e. Watermark Effects, are also applicable to graphic watermarks as well, so let’s first see how we can add a graphic watermark, and then we’ll take a look at these settings.

Watermark Photos in Lightroom with a Graphic Based Watermark

To add a graphic watermark, such as your logo or your signature, simply go to the top, choose the Graphic option from Watermark Style, then click on the Choose… under Image Options. That’ll ask you where the file is. Navigate to the file, select it and press “Choose”. What you have to make sure is that it’s a transparent PNG file of your logo or signature. If its a JPEG, it’ll come with a white rectangle around your logo. I’ve added a PNG of my logo in the screenshot below and you can see that it’s only showing the logo without any white rectangle around it.

Under Watermark Effects, you have some things you can change to alter the watermark itself. You can change its opacity to make it a little more transparent if you want. So, I can bring it down to say, 50 and that’ll make my watermark somewhat transparent; so its not too distracting from the photo.

Then, next, I have size. If I choose Proportional and then increase this slider, the size of my watermark will increase in a proportional way and I can decide what size I want to keep it at.  Next we have two more options, Fit and Fill. Fit will fit the watermark through the width of the entire photo, so the watermark will now be from one corner to the other corner in the photo. Fill will fill it from top to bottom, even if that means cropping out some of the watermark. I personally keep it at Proportional and then decide the size myself.
After the size, we have inset. This will decide how far away from the edges my watermark is. So, in the screenshot above, its on zero and the watermark is touching the edges. As I increase the horizontal and vertical sliders, it will add some distance from the edges. I’ll make sure I add equal amounts from both the horizontal and vertical sliders so it’s equally distant from both edges.

Then, lastly we have the positioning of the watermark. We can select that from this anchor option here. So, if I want it in the center of the photo, I’ll click on the center dot. Similarly if I want it on any other corner, then the other options will work. I can rotate the watermark if I want, using the two buttons on the right of the Anchor option.

Once you’re done, you can hit the Save button, and that’ll ask you for a name for your Watermark Preset. Let’s call this one “White Logo” and then click Create.

It’ll bring me back to the Export panel; where in this dropdown menu, I can choose the Preset we just created and then when I export the photos; all the photos will have the watermark on them.

So, that’s how you watermark photos in Lightroom. Whenever uploading your photos online, it’s really important that you add your watermark, so that it not only protects you against theft, but also acts as a marketing tool for your business.