Automatically Watermark Photographs on Your Blog

One of the biggest concerns of professional photographers is how to showcase their photographs online without inviting unscrupulous individuals to use their work without a permission. The most common solution is to watermark photos to protect their work, but this is often a very time-consuming and tedious process.

There is a large number of photographers and photo-bloggers who use WordPress, and for them, there is a great plug-in solution that works seamlessly to watermark their images. This solution is called Watermark RELOADED Pro, and it contains many options to customize and automate the watermarking process.

There is two versions of this WP plug-in, one is a full version, called Watermark RELOADED Pro and a free version that has a limited number of features.

Once installed, the plug-in has a settings screen similar to other WordPress plug-ins so that users will be comfortable with the interface. From the settings page a wide variety of options can be set.

Photographers can choose which size images will be watermarked. For instance, they may want the watermark to appear on all sizes except thumbnails or large images only. They can also select where the watermark appears – top, bottom, corners, or center – nine different options. This allows them to make the watermark very obvious or unobtrusive. This is also controlled by setting the opacity of the watermark using a slider.

One option that is very powerful is the watermark type – text or image. If the user chooses image, they upload any image they wish to use. This can be a logo, a scanned signature, a watermark created elsewhere, or anything else to their liking. The user can choose to add a background and what color background they want. This used in conjunction with the opacity level can be a great way to customize the end result.

If they choose a text watermark, they will use the remaining options to set up the watermark in a near infinite variety. First, they type in the text they want to use and optionally add a variable which will make each watermark appear unique. This is one of many powerful options only available in the Pro version. They can then choose options such as font, size, color and opacity for the text. As with the image option, users can also optionally use a background with options for color and opacity, and text also has options for a border.

Once the options are set up, the user never has to think about it again, unless they want to change the watermark appearance. Every image they upload to their WordPress blog that fits the size criteria they have selected in the settings will be watermarked automatically with the options chosen.

You will find both versions in the official directory of WordPress plugins – wordpress.org/extend/plugins/watermark-reloaded/

Any photographer that is serious about their work and uses WordPress to showcase their images should consider Watermark Reloaded Pro and start protecting their images from unauthorized use.