Automate Watermarking

In this Photoshop tutorial i will show you how to create an action for watermarking your images. You can even assign an F-key on your keyboard for the task, so when time is short and you need to watermark your images in a hurry, the whole process is done for you by pressing just one little button….. handy isn’t it!! This tutorial is a slight off-shoot from my other Photoshop tutorial titled “WATERMARK YOUR IMAGES”. By this i mean that this tutorial starts between step 7 and step 8, and it ends between step 15 and step 16. It sounds a touch confusing i know but in a moment you will see it is actually a doddle and you will be on your way to 21st century automation in just a few short minutes.

OK… so you have both your watermark image/logo/text or whatever it is you are going to use, and you have your photo that will be watermarked open in photoshop???….yes…Groovy.

Follow steps 1-7 in the “WATERMARK YOUR IMAGES” tutorial. when you get to step 7, stop right there and at that point this tutorial begins… see you in a moment….

Welcome back. You should have an outline of your watermark on your image at this point.  Now open your Actions pallete and click on the little icon at the bottom to ‘create a new action set‘.  The third one from the right. A box will open and here you give your new action a title. Once you have a catchy title, click OK.

Step 7.1

At this point you must make sure that the work path is selected as well as your new action set. Now click on the ‘create new action‘ icon at the bottom of the Actions palette. It is here that you will describe your action and assign it an F-key so you can repeat the watermarking process at the touch of a button!! (of course you don’t have to assign an F-key, but I find it makes my life a little simpler).When you have assigned an F-key and are ready to continue, click on RECORD.

Step 7.2

Are you with me so far??? If you get a bit lost, just scream as loud as you can and someone will come running to help you!. Once you have started recording, have a look at the top right of your Actions palette and click on the little icon that has three small lines and a little down arrow. The one right above the scroll bar of the Actions palette. This little icon opens the fly-out menu and in here you will load the work path into your action.

Step 7.3

OK, now that you have just created a shiny new action and you have started recording and the work path has been inserted from the Action pallete fly-out menu. Its time to continue with your watermarking. You’ve stopped your process at the point where you have deleted the watermark layer from the layers pallete, and you were left with an outline of your watermark. Now you can continue on to step 8 of the “WATERMARK YOUR IMAGES” tutorial, and i will see you back here when you get to the end of step 15.

Back already?? that was quick!!…we are almost done so lets get to it. You have added your watermark to your image, and are happy with the opacity of it, then open your Actions pallete again, and right at the bottom on the very left hand side, click on the little STOP button ( it turns blue when your mouse hovers over it) By doing this you stop recording your steps.So should you feel the need to adjust your photo or your watermark, those steps will not be recorded. So be sure you want to stop recording before you click on the stop button.

Step 7.4

And thats it. Congrats…. You have just created an action to add your watermark to your images at the touch of a button. It is not that difficult to get the hang of writing actions that help to speed up your workflow with tasks you perform often. I wrote an action a while ago which adds copyright data to the photos EXIF file. With my watermark action i decided to include the copyright action as well. all i did was press the assigned F-key and only then stopped recording. Now i can press one key and have my image watermarked and the EXIF data copywritten…. groovy!!

Well, there it is. I hope you have learned something new, and your life is a little less complicated. Have a go at creating other new actions that will automate your frequent tasks, and if you have any problems get in touch and i will do my best to help. Believe me, have those frequent tasks “actioned” makes things go a lot quicker than you might realize.

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