Creating A Watermark Using PicMonkey

 I firmly believe that ALL of us who create 

should be doing two things

1. Watermarking our artwork
2. giving credit to the original artist when at all possible  

Let me start today's ramblings by stating:

• I am ALL for "scraplifting" and "CASEing" (copy and steal everything).  
• I think imitation IS the greatest form of flattery.  
• I often use someone else's artwork as a jumping off point.  Heck, I even think it is ok to just flat out COPY and recreate FOR MY OWN PERSONAL USE.  

What  I do not believe is right is to post, pin, or present (in anyway, someone else's artwork as mine.  

While browsing around on pinterest and facebook getting inspired by the artwork of others the other day I saw a post by a CTMH sister consultant that got me all fired up.  Someone had cropped her name and info off the bottom of her layout and posted it on the internet.....WAY WAY NOT COOL!  

It is one thing to re-pin something and not be aware of the original source (although this is something I am working on) but that "someone" had to go out of their way to download, crop, edit, and THEN repost her artwork.  On the spot I replied to her fb post and offered to teach her how to make a true watermark.  Their have since been several  responses showing interest in how to do this, someone even suggested I make a you tube video.....

Ok, well here it goes.  Today I have learned:

1. I am NOT prepared to enter into the you tube video making business/hobby....yet
2. The guys at picmonkey.com are awesome

This is my watermark.  My name and my website, simple but to the point.  I created this watermark a couple of months ago using picmonkey.  You can't see it in the first picture but it was created on a CLEAR background and then saved in my "for my blog" folder so that I can layer it on top of any picture that I am planning to put on the internet.

 

This is a sample of what my watermark looks like on a layout that I have posted.  Notice how it looks "faded" while the original did not?  Well the beauty of using picmonkey is that once I layer the watermark over the picture I can change the color so that it shows up no matter what color the underlying picture is...and then....I can use a slider bar to "fade out" the lettering.....EASY PEASY!!!!

This is where my statement "The guys at picmonkey are awesome" comes in.  While attempting to create a tutorial or a video (EEK!).  It suddenly occurred to me...."WHY are you trying to reinvent the wheel here"?  I contacted picmonkey to try and get permission (YES, I believe in asking permission & giving credit where credit is due) to re-post their entire, AMAZING watermarking tutorial onto my blog.  I was quickly contacted back and was told that re-posting would "make the monkey sad" and suggested that I instead create a post showing examples of MY watermark, saying "a few kind words about picmonkey" and then linking you to their tutorial.

Well DUHH!!!
It's a classic case of "CASEing" at it's best.

Click on the link below to go directly to the tutorial.

Claim Your Artistry by Adding a Watermark

If I manged to do it....so can you!  And just think how much easier it will be for ALL of us if every picture out there had a name and website watermarked on it......

(oh by the way....I made my signature box in picmonkey too!)