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Lightroom Custom Watermark Tutorial

My “Under the Loupe” tutorial on using an export action to create a custom watermark for the web galleries is finally out in Photoshop User magazine (Sept 07, pg 84). Here’s the nutshell version:

  1. Create watermark action in Photoshop
  2. Turn action into a droplet and save in Lightroom’s Export Actions folder
  3. Configure Lightroom’s Auto Import function so that images saved from the droplet are automatically imported
  4. Select images in Lightroom that you want to watermark, click Export and select your droplet as the “After Export” action
  5. Bring all the auto imported watermarked images into the web gallery
  6. Upload to your web space

Pick up the September 2007 issue of Photoshop User magazine for the detailed steps!

6 thoughts on “Lightroom Custom Watermark Tutorial”

  1. Hi Francesco,

    Unfortunately not all web galleries have kuler built into the advanced settings. I wish I had included that in the comments on Matt’s blog. It should still be available in the HTML gallery of Lightroom 2.1. If you don’t see the option in the gallery you are using you’ll have to use the steps in Matt’s tip.

    Rob

    1. lexi – Blythe: yes, I export all my imeags as JPG’s out of lightroom but then save a PSD files of the finished image from photoshop and that’s the file I go to to size for web, prints ect. I keep my RAW just in case something happens and the JPG’s are kinda just there, lol. I like having both lightroom and photoshop because I feel like they have there weaknesses and strengths. I am not a big fan of presets in LR, don’t know why, and you can’t work on RAW files in photoshop so I need lightroom for that. Meg: I have CS2, I’m kinda old school, but I don’t use it for much so I never saw the point in upgrading.March 18, 2011 9:52 pm

  2. I am trying to automate a watermark on my images in Lightroom 1.0. I have followed the steps in your tutorial but my exported images are not showing the watermark. Can you assist me with this?

  3. Hi Joe,

    Mac or Win? You should also update to Lightroom 1.4.1 to benefit from all the bug fixes and new features added to version 1.

    First, test your droplet outside of Lightroom. Do this by simply drag/dropping a photo onto the droplet. Does it work as expected? If not, go back to your action and see if you can find where it is going wrong, then re-create the droplet. Once you are able to get the droplet to work on its own you should then try it with Lightroom.

    Another option to consider is Lr/Mogrify:

    http://timothyarmes.com/lrmogrify.php

    This is an export plugin that can be used to apply a watermark on export. I prefer this option over the droplet now that it is available.

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