Another Lightroom Watermark Question

I'm very comfortable with watermarks in LR5. However, I need more flexibility in where I can place a small text watermark. Is there a way to place it in an area of the image that isn't one of the 9 anchors, or inset adjustments.

Between the inset function and the 9 fields, can't you put the watermark anywhere you want? What are you trying to do?

PineBomb wrote in post #17382972
Between the inset function and the 9 fields, can't you put the watermark anywhere you want? What are you trying to do?

No I can't. The watermark is small on purpose. The 9 anchors aren't always in convenient locations and the insets only allow for slight horizontal and vertical movement. I want to place the mark in an inconsoicuous place in the image and that will vary from image to image. Just trying to learn if that's possible with LR5.

PineBomb wrote in post #17382972
Between the inset function and the 9 fields, can't you put the watermark anywhere you want? What are you trying to do?

There are limitations. The corners let you move horizontally and vertically. The other points are limited. If you can't get the text to where you want it using the horizontal and vertical sliders, about all you can do is enter blank spaces to move the text. To put it lower, you can enter lines by entering a space, then hitting Enter to get a blank line.

Other than that, the only way to position it even more precisely would be by making a transparent PNG with the text where you want it. Of course if you do that, it is probably as easy to just just the editor you made the PNG with to add the watermark.

Nogo wrote in post #17383014
Other than that, the only way to position it even more precisely would be by making a transparent PNG with the text where you want it. Of course if you do that, it is probably as easy to just just the editor you made the PNG with to add the watermark.

OK, that's an idea. what type of software would be needed to make such a transparent overlay.

Larry Johnson wrote in post #17383021
OK, that's an idea. what type of software would be needed to make such a transparent overlay.

Most any full editor. Of course Photoshop or Photoshop Elements will, but so will many of the less expensive ones.

I tried to see if Paint will, but the free Paint program that comes with Windows computers appears unable to. I don't know if there are any free programs that will, but there probably are some that are reasonably priced if not free.

Just looking around quickly I see that Pixlr allows both added text and transparent backgrounds. That is a free online photo editor. I have never used it but a search on this board shows many users like it for use with iPads and such. Apparently that is one free option available to you.

If you wish, you may instead try some of the trail offers. Try them out for 30 days and see which one you like. If you are like most of us, sooner or later you will get to the point you want to be able to work with layers and other advanced functions so you might as well use the trail to make the watermark and check out the pixel editor while you do.

You can't get 100% freedom to place anywhere using the text watermark but you can alter the position quite a bit by adding blank lines.

Thanks all.

what about mogrify ? Only issue I think you may have with using LR or Mogrify to place watermarks is that the watermark is added during the export/print operation and applies the same settings to the group/collection of images being printed. If you require each image to have the watermark in different position or size then it may be quicker to export all the images then apply watermarks to each using third party program or Photoshop. Doing a google there appears to be quite a number of third part shareware programs for batch watermarking.

Personally I would like to see more flexibility in the LR watermark feature such that you can set the watermark within the develop module and the export/print tools only need a switch to switch the watermark on or off, it would make things much easier....but will Adobe add such feature, maybe not for sometime yet....