How I make a watermark

A couple of readers have now asked how I make a watermark now on my photos.  I just decided to do it and protect myself.  Not that my photos are that great, but I resent Google Images STEALING every single one of them!!!

I use a website called PicMonkey. You can do what I do FREE, you don't need their Royale program.  It's easy enough for anyone, like me, who isn't PhotoShop proficient.  Hubby is a graphic arts designer, but doesn't have time to teach me PhotoShop, so I'm on my own!  Other people use Picasa, but I haven't used that, so I'm ONLY going to talk about PicMonkey, although I imagine the process is the same...I'll be posting a few links for you to follow.

PicMonkey:  Here's their link:   http://www.picmonkey.com/

First, go to "edit" at the top of the bar.  You have to select a photo to edit.  Now, my photos are on my desktop, so I just go to the file I want, and open up the photo I want.  Your photo will open up.

Next, look at the menu on your left hand side of the screen.  On the very left, you'll notice some symbols.  The frame is for crop, the T is for text.  You'll want the T to add text to a photo.  There are a lot of free fonts, but if you see one with the crown, that means it is the Royale version and you'll have to pay $33 a year for Royale.  I don't do that  (too cheap!)

Anyway, click on the font you want. This time I'll use Sue Ellen Francisco.  Click on the box above the list of the left that says "add text".  That will make a color scheme appear on the far right and a box will appear on your photo that says "Add text here".  I always choose a very obnoxious color, like yellow, if I can, or even hot pink sometimes!  You DO have to select a color.  You can make it brighter or softer by using the little "fade" circle.  Really, I try to be as hideous as I can, so I make mine pretty noticeable.  You may not wish to do that, however.  I'll do yellow for this photo because the yellow will REALLY stand out!  (he,he!)  Oh, and you CAN adjust the size of the watermark.  Again, look in the box below the colors and you'll see a number.  That's the font size number.  You can adjust that.  I chose "144" for this photo.  Now go ahead and type your text in the text box.  I usually put "(c) C. Dean 2015", but sometimes, like if I put a photo on Facebook, I'll add , "All rights reserved"...ha! (Not that it does any good!)  For some reason, you have to click OFF the text box to move it around to where you wish to place it on the photo.  Do that now.  Drag the text to where you want it, click off, and VOILA!  You are done!

Finally, go BACK to the top menu back, where you clicked "open".  Don't click on open, but click "SAVE" so that you can now save this photo.  Again, on the left, a menu will appear and click on "save to my computer".  I always add "txt.jpg" to the photo.  You HAVE to save it as a jpg file and I just add text.jpg to let me know that I have watermarked it.

Then, you come back here, click on the photo icon on blogger, and select that photo:

Here's the photo I just did:

You may have to play with it for a while.  I know I made a lot of mistakes at first.  You DO have to save your photo as a jpg, which was one of my first mistakes!  Shoot me a comment if you need help.
Oh, and I put the huge watermark on the photo I now use as my header by choosing the largest text size I could on PicMonkey, again, as a watermark.