Friday, January 18, 2013

Posting photos on the Internet

In several discussion groups the issue of how or whether to post photos of our art online. Personally, I don't mind if people copy and paste my work as long as I get credit for it and those viewing it can find me to see more of my work if they like it. One way to do this is to put a watermark on all the photos that you post. You'll see my watermark on my last entry's photos. (I only learned how to do this yesterday and found out it is easy if you have Photoshop Elements or a similar program).  So I'll try to give you step-by-step instructions. You can also see some demos on YouTube that show different ways to put on your watermark.
Here is a photo of one of my art quilts called Water Cycles. You see my watermark is my website address.
Water Cycles

1. Open your photo in your software (I used Photoshop Elements 10)
2. Create a new layer.
3. Make sure your new layer is highlighted so that you are adding the text to the new layer.
4. Click on the text tool. In PSE it's a "T" on the toolbar on the left side.
5. Set the font, size, and color from the toolbar at the top.
6. Click on the photo where you want the text to be and drag to create a text box. You'll see that it has little squares on its corners.
7. Type your text. Highlight your text. Go to the Move tool on the left toolbar and click on it. Click on your text. A box appears around your text.
8. Click near one of the corners and a curved arrow will appear and then you can rotate your text if you want it to be at an angle. You can also grab the corners and drag to stretch out your text.
9. Go to Layer menu at the top. Scroll down to Layer Styles. Choose Style Settings. (If Style Settings is grayed out, then you have to click outside your text box on the photo to close it first.)
10. I chose Bevel, 30 degrees, 3px. Click OK
11. Set the opacity you want on your text layer.
12. Save your file.

That's the first time I've written directions for PSE. I hope it is clear. If you have questions or comments, please write.

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