Day 167 - Creating a watermark in Lightroom 3

I have been super busy with work again and haven't had the time to do any photography.  Today was a gorgeous Thanksgiving Day, but I had to slog 10 hours at my computer - go figure!  I guess, I should be giving thanks that I do have a job to keep me busy.  I try to count my blessings each day, but sometimes it's difficult not to crib when you know that you are missing something in your life that's more exciting!  For me, it's photography - I guess I'm obsessing over it a little bit too much, so it's good to give myself these little breaks! ;)

I have a few bracketed shots of this church I really love, that I again wanted to turn into HDR. And again I thought, I should give that a break as well!  So, I edited it as I normally would and touched up very minimally.  I sharpened it a bit, and added a little bit more clarity and vibrance.  That's all!  And yes, I figured out how to create a watermark in Lightroom 3 while I was at it.  In case you're new to LR3 as I am, and are looking for a way to use this feature, just follow the quick steps below.
I'm using a Mac, thus the screens you see are for the Mac, only.  I'm quite certain the Windows version will not be too different.
1. You can create the watermark as you're exporting your image after processing it in Lightroom.  Simply click on File -> Export in the menu bar.
2. You will see the export dialog box:

Scroll down to the Watermarking section. As you can see, I have my default set up as Shinydewdrop.

3. Open the dropdown box and select Edit Watermarks to start creating yours and ensure that the Watermark option is checked.

4. You can pick between a Text and a Graphic style for your watermark.  For the first part, I've chosen the Text option.  In the blank editable portion at the bottom-left of your screen, add the text you would like to display as your watermark.  (To create the copyright symbol ©, use Option+G on your Mac and the Windows version would be Alt+0169).  Another easy way to do this is to find the © symbol on the Internet and then just copy-pasting it into the window.

Feel free to play around with the options available for adding effects to the watermarking.  

5. Once you're done, click Save.

6. At this point you will be asked to name your watermarking preset.  

7. Give it a name and then click Export.

8. You might also want to use a graphic.  To do that, you will first need to create a graphic file.  I did mine in Photoshop Elements 8 and then used the Graphic option in the Watermark Editor. Here is a link to a good tutorial for creating a signature file/logo in PSE8 that I found on the Internet and should work in any version of Photoshop as well: http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/brush/cbrush7.htm

9. The rest of the process is exactly the same.

This is the shot I processed with the little logo I have created for my website that I'm currently working on. 

I hope you will benefit from this quick little tutorial.  And if you do, please leave me a comment to let me know if it was helpful and easy to follow. 

And this image will have to serve as my photo of the day! :(