Now that I’m going to be putting more photos up on the site here, I wanted to automate the workflow as much as possible. One of the things I wanted to do was add a copyright notice to the bottom of each photo. This isn’t as straightforward in a Photoshop action as it could be.
I found these two articles which got me on the right track. Adding the copyright info in the IPTC data in an action is very easy and something I’ve overlooked in the past. Positioning the copyright notice in the image was a bit more difficult.
I had problems using the Align Layers command because of the opacity of one of the layers I was trying to align. I initially had 2 layers, one that was solid black at 30% opacity with a text layer (white) above it at 65% opacity that I combined into a single layer in a file for the purpose of being opened and copied into the photo I am prepping to post on the site. When I used the Align Layers command, it moved the layer too far down and right. It ignored the 35% opacity outer box as a border.
As a hack, I just expanded the layer by a pixel along the right and bottom edges and added a line along those edges at 100% opacity. Now after positioning the layer using the Align Layers command, I just nudge it over and down a pixel to get that 1 pixel line out of the photo. If you know of a better solution than this, please share it in the comments.
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Jens Ebbe Thomsen adds this Comment:
Try this one: http://www.picture-shark.com/
February 12th, 2004 at 7:38 am
Alex adds this Comment:
Using a program like that means uncompressing and re-compressing JPEG images and losing quality. Also, why would I want to use a whole separate program when I can do it with one click of a button in photoshop?
February 12th, 2004 at 9:45 am
kevin adds this Comment:
You talk about putting a comment in each of your photos on your website. Have you looked into gimp? (either on Linux or Windows). I understand that it, like all good *nix programs, can do everything via the terminal/command line window, thus you could write the correct commands into a small scripts pretty easily.
just a suggestion. I haven’t done it myself, but would be interested in hearing if this suggestion pans out for you.
-Kevin
p.s. sorry for posting this in the wrong place. Can you believe I’ve never left a comment on a blog before?
February 24th, 2004 at 7:01 am
Alex adds this Comment:
Using GIMP would be an extra step since I’m already in Photoshop. I don’t have anything against GIMP, it is a nice program – but it isn’t Photoshop, yet.
February 24th, 2004 at 9:07 am
Kristina adds this Comment:
I’m not sure if this will help- I am an amature at photshop. But I created a brush with my information and then used the airbrush to leave my mark…
HTH
May 17th, 2004 at 3:58 pm
Darrick adds this Comment:
I use the Imagemagick tools to add my comments/watermarks to my photography. Sure it would be an extra step, but you can easily have a directory full of images and use the –gravity southeast to put it in the lower right corner. My script is sort of a hack, but if you want it shoot me an email.
-D
June 14th, 2004 at 11:09 pm
Alex adds this Comment:
I have it scripted as part of my output action. Thanks though.
June 15th, 2004 at 12:38 am
Matt adds this Comment:
I reckon you should give BreezeBrowser a go (www.breezesys.com).
Of course, it’s another step – but I use both, and have managed to work out an effective digital workflow.
HTH!
cheers,
Matt
February 22nd, 2005 at 4:06 am
Alex adds this Comment:
PC-only solutions are rarely useful for me.
February 22nd, 2005 at 9:33 am
Vincent 'aetherea' Wong adds this Comment:
http://www.irfanview.com/ is a very nice and small program that’ll let you do batch watermarking of your work.
It’s less than a meg and best of all — free.
I mainly use it to resize my digital photos, beats doing it manually in photoshop, beats doing it via the actions in photoshop (they are slow), and beats doing it in Macromedia Fireworks (which – incidentally – discards the EXIF information)
Hope that helps,
– Vince.
April 23rd, 2005 at 4:49 am
oldewolfe adds this Comment:
I keep a word doc with signatures that I use. I will copy the one I want to use to the clipboard. Then when I am ready to add it I use the text tool and paste it in. I can then position it, size it and format it. Extra step but gives me full control.
January 21st, 2006 at 5:36 pm
ECDPhoto adds this Comment:
I use Painshop Pro 8 and it writes it’s scripts in python. Sadly I’m not familiar with Photoshop’s scripting process but you should be able to tweak your scripts with in the scripts code to better modify yours.
I resize all of my images to the same width and height anyway so I created 2 © layers. One for landscape and the other for portrait. Both with my © info. I then created a batch script for each. Resize;Border;Apply layer;Merge;Save.
I don’t know if that even helps you but it may get some gears moving.
Great Site BTW! del.ico.us (*click)
February 19th, 2006 at 9:37 am
g adds this Comment:
The brush/stamp method seems to give me the most flexibility.
October 13th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
Cemal Ekin adds this Comment:
As I understand it, you have a text layer and you would like to position it on the lower right corner of the image offset by a given number of pixels from the bottom and the right edges. You can even have the standard text in a separate file if you like. This process can be automated via an action too. Here it goes:
1. Make sure you have a background layer, if you don’t, create a blank layer anywhere then from the menu “Layers/New Background from this layer” options create a background layer.
2. Put your text anywhere on the stack, even bring it from a separate file and drag it on to your image that you want to stamp
3. Select the background and the text layers only (click on the BG layer to target it, then Ctrl-click on the gray area of the text layer)
4. Go to “Layer/Align/Bottom” and then “Layer/Align/Right”; now the text is touching the edges
5. Target the text layer only by clicking on the layer icon
6. Make sure that you have the “Pick tool” (press V to do that)
7. Using the up and left arrow keys move the text a set number of pixels from the bottom and the right edges
All the steps allow easy action creation, if you are careful, you can SLOWLY repeat the steps after you explore it once or twice while the action recording is turned on.
Enjoy,
Cemal
February 4th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
J Paul adds this Comment:
Cemal,
Outstanding work. May God treat you well!
-JP
February 24th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Cemal Ekin adds this Comment:
Thank you J Paul, your kind words, very kind words are much appreciated. By all means, stop by and leave comments on my site as well.
Cemal
March 26th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
how to place a copyright notice in the bottom right corner automatically, using photoshop actions | thinkoholic.com adds this Pingback:
[...] cemal ekin posted a very valuable comment on alex king’s blog, which lets me do exactly what i want: As I understand it, you have a text layer and you would like [...]
March 27th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Elizabeth Richardson adds this Comment:
I like to use the method Kristina suggested above. Create a brush with your signature/watermark in Photoshop and just pull it out when you need it.
Even quicker than creating an action.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:45 am