Hello everyone, I’m pretty sure that if you create something and share it out to the internet, most of us would want credit for that creation. But in order to get credit for it, most people would use a watermark over that creation. But there is also another reason to watermark an image, very well known with freelancers or people who get commissions. This is to deter people from scamming you and walking away with your work before paying.
That is the topic I want to talk about today. Making an effective watermark for:
- A watermark for when the artwork is publicly shared.
- A watermark for a commission before pay / ‘Example’ Watermark.
Case 1: Regular Watermarks
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A problem I see often with new artists is that their watermark is to big, to conflicting, or even to colorful.
For a watermark to be effective it shouldn’t pull away from the original image, this means the right size, the right opacity, color, and placement.
To get started all you need is either your logo, signature, or a textbox. For now I will use my own signature / logo (This will work with anything that represents you).
FYI : Use a textbox with your username if you are not well known enough, If you use a simple logo or signature people will not know its you, for example my signature is simply :
I know this will work because I am well known enough by the GFX community for people to know this is my watermark, for some something like this may not work.
First, make sure your watermark is simple. As you can see mine above is simply a few brush strokes and can be recreated in a couple of seconds, you want something like this. Flat, easy to read, and not to much going on. Examples of a bad water mark is watermarks that are 3D , colorful, or has alot of stuff in it i.e. flowers, gradients, stocks, just unnecessary stuff.
Moving on, Your watermark on an image shouldn’t be to big or to small, I would recommend just messing around with the size until its around a size where it’s small enough you don’t notice it glaring out at you but not small enough where you literally have to squint to see it.
The color and opacity of the watermark are also big contributors to it, the watermark’s color shouldn’t be anything other than white or black, anything else will conflict. The opacity of the watermark should also be around 60%-90%. I would never really recommend a full 100% opacity as I think the full color of either white or black and seem as its glowing and be to bright.
Example of good:
I did all the steps above on one of my previous landscape renders.
If the steps done above are correct you can get something like this:
You can see above how my watermark doesn’t conflict with the image at all, is simple, and does what a watermark should do.
Example of bad:
I did all the steps above on the same render, just worse.
If the steps above are done bad you can get this:
You can see above how my watermark conflicts heavily with the image, the watermark is simply to big, colorful and isn’t flat.
Case 2: Commission Watermark’
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Making a watermark for an example is very important when it comes to commissions (this is something artists know very well). This watermark should not only be effective in stopping people from walking off with your work, but also be effective in still allowing the client to be able to see the work you have created for them (you should know those 2 will constantly fight eachother). But another thing it could do (something I personally do) is make the artwork be unusable even if they still walk off with it (I’ll get to this in the next section).
In order to create this type of watermark I recommend to have 3 things.
These things being:
- Your own logo, signature, or name. (This will be referred to as X)
- A textbox with the text ‘STOLEN ARTWORK’ (This will be referred to as Y)
- Another textbox that we will leave empty for now. (This will be referred to as Z)
Step 1. Now that we have these three things we will begin the placement and editing of it. I like to go in a pattern all around the image. Starting in the top left corner ending in the bottom right corner of the image. All you have to do is Place it as X,Y,Z then copy and paste that same pattern all throughout the image.
Step 2. Now that we have completely covered the image you have to give it all a color that contrasts the image. What you want to do is figure out the main color of the image and select the opposite of that. For example if the main color of the image is a blue you would select orange or green. After that all we have to do is lower the opacity of it, I would recommend around 50-60%.
Step 3. Now we will talk about this mysterious third text box, this text box will be used to make the artwork unusable even if taken. Some may be wondering how I plan to achieve this. It’s simple, all you have to do is insert in that textbox either 1 or 2 ‘questionable’ words. Something roblox doesn’t like at all.
Example:
I did all the steps above on a current WIP commission of mine (A skyscraper advert) and this is how it should turn out like this:
You will see above that I follow the pattern of My logo, Questionable Text, Stolen Artwork Text, repeat.
That is all, for my tutorial on how to make effective and good watermarks for 2 separate occasions.
If you need help with anything GFX related or want me to make another tutorial on something please contact me on discord : 4aar0n#0004 or on here through Dev-Forum Private messages…
