How I Watermark Photos with Lightroom 2

A nice feature of Lightroom 2’s Export dialog is the ability to automatically add exported copies into the Lightroom catalog. Among other uses, I find it to be a very handy way to add a custom watermark using theLR2Mogrify export plugin to copies of photos I want to add to a Lightroom web gallery. Here are the steps:

1. Select photo(s) to be watermarked, click Export.
2. Configure Export dialog to include Mogrify watermark, check the Add to This Catalog box, configure other settings as desired, click Export.
3. Select imported watermarked photos and switch to Web module.
4. Configure gallery and upload.

Here’s an example gallery. To make it easier to manage these watermarked copies I always configure the Export dialog to save them into a subfolder within the folder that contains the original photos, but you might want to do it differently.

For my watermark I use the Text Annotation feature of the Mogrify plugin to add my name, copyright and email (all pulled from each photo’s metadata) to the center of each photo at a low opacity and then I use the Graphical Watermark panel to add a PNG of my signature to the lower left corner. This feels like a good compromise between keeping the photo viewable and keeping my name associated with the photo. I also use Mogrify to add a border. I’ve found this to be the most flexible and efficient process for adding a custom watermark to all photos leaving Lightroom. I do the same for the photos in my blog posts or when sending via email. I’ve even used it as a way to add my signature to prints.

EDIT: I have written a more in-depth tutorial on using LR2Mogrify for anyone needing more detail: Watermark with Lightroom