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Watermarking images with GIMP 2.2

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is completely free image editing software. [ download it here ]

This very very simple tutorial will teach you how to use GIMP to watermark images, as demonstrated by my rather handsome kitty:





When you first open the GIMP program you're met with 2 seperate panels; layers on the left, and tools on the right.

*(The layers panel should open automatically, If not, go to "File -> Dialogues -> Create New Dock -> Layers Channels & Paths" to open it).

On the tools panel click file -> open, and browse to the image you want to watermark...





Click ok and the image opens up in a seperate panel. Now we're going to make sure its in RGB color. At the top of this new image panel go to Image -> Mode-> RGB.





Absolutely nothing noticable will happen. Dont worry about it, it just means your image is in the right mode, which will matter later on.

Now for the text. Click on the type tool (its the one with the "T" on the tools panel). Then click on your image where you want the text to appear, and the little GIMP Text Editor box will pop up.





Type in your text and click "close". If you want a © symbol and you dont know how to get one on your keyboard, you can highlight this one, press Ctrl+C to copy it and then Ctrl+V to paste it into the GIMP Text Editor.

Now to make the text this lovely shade of grey. While the type tool is still selected, click on the color bar. The colors box will pop up. On the right of it are 6 bars of color (H,S,V,R,G,B). Beside each one is a little box you can type in. Set H and S to 0 and V to 50. (the others will fill in as 128 automatically).





Click Ok. Your text will turn grey. You can also change the font / text size at this point. Times New Roman looks pretty good, and your text should be at least size 30 for the bevel effect to work properly.





Next rotating and moving. Look at the image below for where to find the rotate tool. Click that, and then click on your text. The rotate info box will pop up, but you can completely ignore it- just click on a corner of your text and drag it round untill its at the right angle.





The move tool is the first one on the middle row of the tools panel. You can drag your text around with that.





Now to get the bevel effect, make sure the text layer is still selected, (you can do that by going to the layers panel on the left and clicking on it). Then on the image panel go to Script-Fu -> Decor -> Add Bevel





Set thickness to 5, uncheck work on a copy and click ok.





Now to make the text transparant. Go to the layers panel, with the text layer still selected, go to Mode: Hard Light.





At this point your text should look pretty much finished, and you can leave it at that if you like. To make the text appear a little stronger, Ive duplicated the text layer on mine:

With the text layer still selected, on the image panel go to Layer -> Duplicate Layer.





And hopefully you have ended up with something that looks sort of like this!