Adding Watermarks To Your Photos

I saw this beauty outside my office today.  It has quite unique colors. 

I want to discuss today about copyrighting your photos by inserting watermarks on them.  The technique I used before to add copyright information on my photos was to simply open my photos in Paint and insert a line with my text data.  I would press the alt, and the numbers 0, 1, 6, 9 simultaneously to get the copyright code ©.  I could not put the text in the center of my photo because the text was not transparent and it would have blocked that particular area of my photo.  So most times I would put the text at the bottom right of my photos.

I was working on my Zenfolio photo gallery and realized that Zenfolio has a feature that allows you to easily insert watermarks on your photos and in batches.  But in order for me to have access to this feature, I have to upgrade my account.  I decided against doing that as I am not getting much traffic to this site at the moment and watermarking them would not increase traffic to the site.  So I decided to find a free way to insert watermarks on my photos.

I found this application waterMark V2 - it is free to download and it is very simple to use.  The watermarks can be saved (this feature allows me to create different watermarks for my different websites and blogs) and  you can easily watermark more than one photo at a time. 

Why I watermark photos?  Well it is a good way to identify myself as the photographer of my photos and it is also a way for deterring other people from stealing my photos.  Now before I would insert my information at the bottom of my photos but a photo can be easily cropped to remove that information and the cropped photo can then be used by someone else as their own.  To eliminate that problem, I decided to insert my information in the center of my photos and information has to be as light as possible.

I have been able to achieve this using this free software waterMark V2.  In my photo above you will notice my watermark in center of my photo.   



Zenfolio Webinar

I received a Zenfolio newsletter a few days ago and I realized that there are some instructional videos on the website.  So I visited the website and watched the videos. Basically what I knew but it is good to know that these videos exist.

There is also a webinar that I looked at which was approximately one hour long but it took me about four hours to complete.  Reason being, as I saw a feature that I liked, I paused the webinar and implemented it on my website.  Some steps took some time because it had to be done to each category.  I did things like change the colors of header and footer text, increase the size of photos on the slide show (I also added some more great photos to the slide show) which is located on the home page.  I also changed the layout of the category pages.

The step that I did for the first time was to create a page. I had a welcome message on the home page but I removed it and decided to create a page with the welcome message.  So on the home page, there is a link to this welcome message.

There is also a feature where my visitors could purchase prints of my photos, mouse pads, cups, t-shirts etc with my photos on these items.  I will personally purchase an item to test the service and the end product.  The currency for the products were listed in Euros, I changed that to USD.

In my spare time, I will have to watch the other webinar, I want to learn about keywords and SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  This is my zenfolio website - Photographer's Art

Lenspen Lens Cleaning System

I purchased a Lenspen lens Cleaning System from Amazon on March 1 and received it on the 8th.

I was very anxious to use this device.  It was simple and easy to use.

You use the bush end to remove any debris from the lens, and the pad end to remove fingerprints and the like.

The bush is retractable and soft enough not to damage lenses.

The pad is treated (coated) in such a way as to remove fingerprints without leaving smudges.

The pen can easily slip into a pocket so there is no reason to forget to take it with you when you are going on a photography trip.