How to Watermark Digital Art Using GIMP

By reginapaul

An example of a watermark on a piece of digital artwork. An example of a watermark on a piece of digital artwork.

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GIMP is a wonderful free paint and photo editing software that does everything Photoshop does. You can even open Photoshop files with it. Anyone that creates digital art knows the dangers of having that digital art stolen by online thieves who then take your artwork and put it on products that they then sell. This is illegal but it does not stop online art thieves from doing it. Most of these online thieves are from overseas and it is very difficult to prosecute them and or get them to stop using your art to make money once they have stolen it. So, one of the things you can do to prevent this from happening is to put a watermark on your digital artwork. A watermark will make online art thieves think twice before stealing your digital artwork.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

  • A computer
  • An Internet connection
  • A copy of GIMP installed on your computer

Step1
Open GIMP (see Resources below).
Step2
Select the "File" drop down menu and then "Open." Find your digital art piece and select it.
Step3
Select the "Layer" drop down menu and then "New Layer." Name your new layer “watermark.”
Step4
Open your Layers palette by going to the "Dialog" drop down menu and selecting "Layers."
Step5
Deselect your digital art layer by clicking on the eye next to it on the left.
Step6
Select the new layer. Then from your tool box select the paint bucket and paint this layer white. Then select the "T" for text from your tool box, and select black for the color of your text and type your copyright information where you’d like it to appear on your digital art.
Step7
Go to your "Filters" drop down menu, select "Distorts" and then "Emboss."
Step8
Reselect your digital art layer and your watermark layer (you will notice that GIMP puts your text on a separate layer). Now you will want to select your text layer and change the mode to "Hard Light." Then for your watermark layer change the mode to "Overlay." You should then be able to see your text on your digital art, although it will be faint.
Step9
Now you will want to save your picture. Select "File," then "Save As" and you will get a window saying that your image must be exported before it can saved as a jpeg, then it will say jpeg can’t handle transparency and you’ll see a message suggesting "Flatten Image." Just go ahead and click on "Export." It will ask you what size you want to save the picture as and I always say 100, as this is full size and looks best.

Tips & Warnings

  • When you are adding the emboss distortion to your text play with the settings until the text in your preview window turns white. This will ensure that your text is not too dark.

Resources

Photo/Video Credit

(c) 2008 by Regina Paul.

Comments

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Mital

Mital said

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on 5/16/2008 Hey Regina..
Your article on "How to Watermark?" has been of great assistance to me. Thank you so much for sharing the knowledge.

I am from Pune,India. I have been shooting for a while now and I needed further assistance regarding how to go about selling my images?

Have a wonderful day.
Cheers,
Mital

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eHow Article: How to Watermark Digital Art Using GIMP

eHow Member: reginapaul

reginapaul

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Category: Computers

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