How to Create & Use a Watermark with PicMonkey

You may have noticed that a lot of the images here on A Grande Life contain a watermark. I make sure that almost all of my photos get watermarked, especially if they are pictures of my kids. I made my watermark over a year ago and it took all of 5 minutes to make!

Why should I watermark my images?

With the rise of social sharing sites, images are being passed all over the internet. There are times when this could be a bad thing. But, more often than not, it can be a really good thing. When you have your watermark on the image, there is no question as to who the photo belongs to. And, if you have website, it’s a great way to drive traffic back to your site.

But how do I make one?

You don’t have to have fancy editing software to make and use a watermark. You can make yourself an easy watermark using PicMonkey.

1. Head on over to PicMonkey and click on “Design.” You want to create a custom canvas. I used a canvas with the dimensions 600×400 pixels.

2. Once you have your canvas opened, you want to change the background color from white to transparent. Just check the check box under the color options. You will now have a background that looks like a gray and white checkerboard.

3. You are now ready to create your watermark. Your watermark can be whatever you want. It can be your name, your website address, whatever! Some people opt to use the copyright symbol and their web address. Once you decide, pick a font. I like to use white for my font color.

Don’t worry about size at the moment. When I create my watermarks, I like to make them large. You can shrink them later when applying them to your photographs.

4. Crop your watermark down and save as a .PNG. It is very important that you do not save this as a JPEG.

You are now ready to use your watermark!

How to Apply Your Watermark

1. Open up your photo in PicMonkey. Click the overlay and choose “Your Own”. Upload the watermark you just created.

2. Once your watermark is uploaded, decide where you want to place it on your photo. You can put it in a corner, in the middle of the photo, wherever you decide. It’s best to place it somewhere that is not easily cropped out if you are worried about your photos being “stolen”.

3. If you don’t like the stark white of the watermark, you can tone it down by lowering the opacity. You can do this by moving the “Fade” slider.

Your photo is ready! Save it to your computer and share with the world!

If you use Lightroom as your photo editor, check back next week! I’ll be sharing how to use your watermark with Lightroom.