Freelance Photographer
Seeing things differently
A taker of Photographs - A creator of images

Signature Brush...

You see a lot of images on the web with a copyright symbol and/or a signature embedded in them to try and deter people from downloading the images and printing them off, or using them on their web sites... I will show you how to create the signature and save it as a brush so it can be used on your images in any colour or size you wish...

The first thing to do is open a new file by clicking on File from the Menu Bar and clicking on the word New... Alternately you can use the shortcut keys by holding down the Ctrl + N keys together... This will bring up the window below where you should enter the details as shown in that image... This will give you a reasonable sized canvas to work on...

You can choose whatever font, size etc from the menu bar and even change the options half way through...

• I used the settings above and held down the Alt key and typed in 0169 on the numeric key pad to bring up the copyright symbol...
• I then pressed the space bar, just to create a space naturally...
• I then changed the font from Arial to Monika and typed in my signature as shown below...
• Click on the crop tool marked in green on the tools palette and crop round your signature as shown below.. This is done by starting at the top left while clicking and holding down the left mouse button dragging it over the signature in a downward and right motion then letting go...
• Press enter on the keyboard to complete the crop shown by the dotted lines...

The next thing to do is actually save the brush so it can be selected whenever you need to add your signature to an image...

This is done by clicking on Edit from the menu bar, then choosing Define Brush Preset...

This will bring up the image below, type in a name for your brush and you just click OK...

Your brush can be found by scrolling down your Brush Preset Palette indicated by the red dot on the image left... The brush will be at the very bottom of your brushes preset palette...

Now when you want to add your signature to an image you just select this brush... Choose the colour, size and the opacity you want to use... Position it where you want it and click the left mouse button... You will then have painted your signature on the image...

Note: If you use the signature on a separate layer it can be removed, if you don't use a separate it cannot be removed without a lot of cloning...

Also see Translucent Watermark as an alternative for protection...