WOW some of the things I CANT do in lightroom are just unreal

Okay, Lightroom 3 is probably the most advanced photo managing software on the planet, at least it seems really good to me. I hardly have to use photoshop at all anymore. HOWEVER, they have finally upgraded the watermark feature in lightroom yet I still can't simply overlay a PNG at it's native resolution. Instead I'm forced to guess by moving a dumb slider, which makes the font pixellate and look like crap. WHY can I not do this incredibly simple task?

Aperture's watermark support is worse. (if that's any consolation to you?)

It's just that they spent all this time designing the watermark module and completely overlooked what I would assume most higher level photographers wish to do with their watermarks. Hopefully I get it in an update... my photos are going commando till then.

And that is actually consolation to me, haha just gotta wait till they figure it out now.

The thing that is killing me, while we're ranting... is in Aperture 3, while you can export nice watermarks, it does do pretty much what I need, but and this is a big butt, the watermarks are completely ignored if you the new social site integration with facebook, flickr, etc.. Can you believe that? Who the hell, using a pro photo app, would put images up on facebook without a watermark? The entire programming routine seems to just bypass your default export settings and sends out naked images.

Arggh!

The solution is rather simple....start out with a logo that's large enough and you wouldn't have a problem with pixelation. If you stretch any bitmapped file too much it will break apart into individual pixels. For example, my cameras produce images that are about 4,000 pixels wide...so I made my logos with 2,000 x 400 pixels dimensions. This allows me to scale my logo to max. width if required without any pixelaton occurring.

While the PNG format supports transparent backgrounds it doesn't scale well...my wish is that Illustrator vector file formats (AI or EPS) was enabled in the watermarking module.

PixelMagic wrote in post #11228535
The solution is rather simple....start out with a logo that's large enough and you wouldn't have a problem with pixelation....

I was thinking the same thing.
I have several watermarks depending on the effect I'm after, and they are all max-size to begin with.
Try it, and you'll not stress again!
Regards,
Simon

PixelMagic wrote in post #11228535
While the PNG format supports transparent backgrounds it doesn't scale well...my wish is that Illustrator vector file formats (AI or EPS) was enabled in the watermarking module.

Isn't pdf supported?

skygod44 wrote in post #11228556
I was thinking the same thing.
I have several watermarks depending on the effect I'm after, and they are all max-size to begin with.
Try it, and you'll not stress again!
Regards,
Simon

Exactly; max size and high resolution is the way to go. Overlaying a 72 ppi watermark on a 240 ppi (Lightroom default resolution) image increases the likelihood of problems even if the watermark was made with the maximum image width.

René Damkot wrote in post #11228651
Isn't pdf supported?

Lightroom only supports JPEG and PNG formats for watermarking through the Export dialog box.

PixelMagic wrote in post #11228693
Lightroom only supports JPEG and PNG formats for watermarking through the Export dialog box.

That's a bit silly. .pdf and .psd are supported for the Identity plate...
Mogrify does seem to support .tif and .psd. No idea wether it supports vectors though.
Have to give that a try some day.

Edit: Apparently, it doesn't...

PixelMagic wrote in post #11228535
The solution is rather simple....start out with a logo that's large enough and you wouldn't have a problem with pixelation. If you stretch any bitmapped file too much it will break apart into individual pixels. For example, my cameras produce images that are about 4,000 pixels wide...so I made my logos with 2,000 x 400 pixels dimensions. This allows me to scale my logo to max. width if required without any pixelaton occurring.

While the PNG format supports transparent backgrounds it doesn't scale well...my wish is that Illustrator vector file formats (AI or EPS) was enabled in the watermarking module.

I am outputting images with a maximum of 900px on the long edge. My watermark is 900px wide (its about 60px high, its a bar watermark). I wish to overlay it at it's native 1:1 ratio, but you can't do this in lightroom. I got it to do it for the horizontal images however when the vertical images come in it shrinks the watermark to fit. No way around this. See posts 4 and 5 for what I'm talking about, if my explanation didn't make sense - http://forums.adobe.co​m/message/3046136

Basically instead of having lightroom resize my logo to be a ratio of a fill or what not, I just want it to keep the png file at it's native resolution and throw it on the bottom of each image. Don't touch it, just place it there. If some of the sides get cut off because my vertical image isn't 900px wide, that is fine. But lightroom insists upon resizing my watermark so it looks like crap.

Well, it's not a perfect solution, but you could just use a separate software to put the watermark onto the images. Faststone Resizer can do this (freebie from Faststone.org).

As I see it, LR3 is basically designed to make it as easy as possible to add a watermark. OP has a rather different approach... I think most users would prefer it to automatically scale the WM to fit different size images (just be sure the WM file is large enough for the largest image it ever needs to be added). Yep, it even scales as needed for vertical vs horizontal shots. And, since LR3 can control transparency easily with a slider, you can simply make any and all of your WM files "full strength". Just a different approach....

But maybe what you would like to be able to do is something Adobe might add in future versions, that you can set it to not scale the WM but simply trim it to fit.

I'm just happy to finally have an easy means of WMing in LR. WIth LR2 I used Faststone separately, with 50% transparency PNG files set up for different size output. But have now switched to using LR3 so watermarking can be fully combined with my lower-rez/thumbnail Export workflow, saving me time and extra steps. Yes, I did have to set up new watermark files for LR, but I didn't think is all that big a deal to do... it only took a few minutes. PNG or JPEG make sense to use for this, since their file size can be kept minimal and they are among the most widely supported in a variety of softwares. Not everyone has the softwares to produce a PDF or even a PSD file. Practically everyone has something installed that can produce a simple PNG and/or JPEG.

A lot of the time I suspect the people designing the software are pretty unfamiliar with its end use... Adobe is probably better at Beta and Release Candidate testing than most... But certainly not perfect. I noticed a lot of "glitches" in LR3 initially. The latest release candidate appears to address some, if not all of these.

amfoto1 wrote in post #11230830
Well, it's not perfect buy you can just use a separate software to put the watermark onto the images. Faststone Resizer can do this (freebie from Faststone.org).

As I see it, LR3 is basically designed to make it as easy as possible to add a watermark. It automatically scales it to fit different size images (just be sure your file is large enough for the largest image you ever need to watermark). It scales it as needed for vertical vs horizontal shots too. And since LR3 can control transparency easily with a slider, you can just make any and all of your watermark files "full strength".

I used to use Faststone, with 50% transparency PNG files set up for different size output. But have now switched to using LR3 so watermarking can be fully combined with my lower-rez/thumbnail Export workflow, saving me time and extra steps. Yes, I did have to set up new watermark files for LR, but I didn't think is all that big a deal to do... it only took a few minutes. PNG or JPEG make sense to use for this, since their file size can be kept minimal and they are among the most widely supported in a variety of softwares. Not everyone has the softwares to produce a PDF or even a PSD file. Practically everyone has something installed that can produce a simple PNG and/or JPEG.

Yeah its a very capable watermarking tool, but I just wish there was an option/checkbox for "do not scale my watermark". That's all I need. Should take a programmer an hour or so to implement...

Mogrify lets you add a graphical watermark and it has an option to disable resizing.

hollis_f wrote in post #11235069
Mogrify lets you add a graphical watermark and it has an option to disable resizing.

Yup, that's what I was using in LR2 and will continue to do in LR3 if I wish to keep watermarking... just wish they could build it into lightroom.

Well, you can put in a feature request with the LR team -- they do check those things. Maybe if you brought it up in the LR users forum and put in a request as well it might get some attention. Software has a way of evolving!