Watermarking your images is one of the easiest ways to 'protect' your pictures on the Internet. Yes, you can disable the right click option on your blog, but in all honesty it isn't as effective as you might think - especially since you can't disable 'ctrl + paste'! I started to watermark mine after some were used in a scam sale on a make-up forum; I know that some bloggers have had issues with their images being used for eBay sales, fake forum identities and even fake Facebook profiles!
I asked on Twitter if I could use anybody's blog pictures for this post, since, out of curiosity I wanted to see if anyone who replied already watermarked their images. I had four replies and couldn't see watermarks anywhere. I've talked about it a few times, but I'd recommend
Photoscape for any blog photo editing needs, since it's mega easy and free!
1. Open your image in Photoscape. View it at the size that it will appear on your blog if possible. Click the 'Object' tab along the bottom.
2. Click the 'Text' icon (T) and type your blog name or URL into the text box.
3. Choose the where you want your text to go and roughly the size that you want it to be (you may have to change this in the next step). Where you place your watermark is up to you - I usually place mine at the bottom right, or where it couldn't easily be cropped out! I like the detail of the texture on the product in this photo, so I don't want to obstruct it with a watermark.
4. Now pick the typeface and colour that you want for your watermark - keep it simple and easy to read, so any image thieves can't argue if you catch up with them!
5. Use the 'Opacity' toggle to make the text fainter, but still readable.
6. Save your image (.png works best with text layers) and upload to your blog!
Easy peasy, right?! Thank you to Lisa of
Golden Glow for allowing me to use one of her images. Definitely check out her blog, by the way, fast becoming one of my favourites! Also thanks to
Grace,
Emily and
Bex for offering their images for this post :)
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