Watermarking
Aperture: Add Watermarks To Contact Sheets
2007-06-16
Aperture can add watermarks to images as they are exported, but what do you do if you want to watermark contact sheets? It would seem that the only way would be to export each image with a watermark and then reimport them and print them as contacts. There is a better way, but it needs a reasonable amount of set-up. It involves using Automator to add a watermark to the contact print PDFs created by Aperture.
I create a contact print with Aperture by saving as a PDF and then import into an empty transparent Photoshop document as a raster image background:
On top of that I add white Bagelturf watermarks by making one and then option-dragging to add more. It turns out that the technique of positioning the watermarks so that they match the images is just too much trouble, so instead I recommend that the watermarks just be scattered randomly or kept very small and used in a fine grid so that each image has at least one readable one. There is probably a Photoshop feature for doing this that I don't know about or doesn't exist in my copy of Photoshop LE.
I delete the background layer and create a full-page watermark document that is all transparent except for the watermarking scattered all over the image. I save it as a PNG to preserve the transparency and to keep the file size small.
Next I launch Automator and create a new workflow. First I drag PDF:Watermark PDF on, followed by Preview: Print Image. I set up the watermark action by adding the watermark file that I created previously with the Add.. button and adjusting the settings so that the watermark image is positioned correctly. This takes experimentation since the example image is not very helpful. I set up the Print Images action so that the orientation and printer selection is what I want. I have seen comments that this technique only works with the default printer, so you may find yourself wrestling with that.
And ignore the red text that says that the PDF files from the Watermark PDF action will not flow into the Image Files input to the Print Images action.
If you want to change the useless example document used in the action, replace the file called Bears.pdf in System > Library > Automator > Watermark PDF.action. Open the action with a control click and select Show Package Contents. It's in the Resources > English.lproj folder on a system that is using English language settings. If you want to get really hacky, you can examine the python script that does the watermarking that lives in the Resources folder.
Next I save the workflow as as a plug-in for a print workflow and call it Watermark3x4:
As long as the watermark image is correctly positioned I am done. To use this workflow from Aperture, I select my images and go to File > Print. I change the contact print settings to get it the way I want it (on one or many pages), but I don't press Print. I press Preview instead.
When Preview comes up and shows the first contact print page it has no watermarks.
To add the watermarking, I click the Print icon and then select the PDF button. I click on Watermark3x4 on the drop-down menu that appears and the pages print immediately. I click Cancel to get out of Preview.
The workflow I created lives in the Library > PDF Services folder in my home folder. To get rid of it I just drag it to the trash.
I create a contact print with Aperture by saving as a PDF and then import into an empty transparent Photoshop document as a raster image background:
On top of that I add white Bagelturf watermarks by making one and then option-dragging to add more. It turns out that the technique of positioning the watermarks so that they match the images is just too much trouble, so instead I recommend that the watermarks just be scattered randomly or kept very small and used in a fine grid so that each image has at least one readable one. There is probably a Photoshop feature for doing this that I don't know about or doesn't exist in my copy of Photoshop LE.
I delete the background layer and create a full-page watermark document that is all transparent except for the watermarking scattered all over the image. I save it as a PNG to preserve the transparency and to keep the file size small.
Next I launch Automator and create a new workflow. First I drag PDF:Watermark PDF on, followed by Preview: Print Image. I set up the watermark action by adding the watermark file that I created previously with the Add.. button and adjusting the settings so that the watermark image is positioned correctly. This takes experimentation since the example image is not very helpful. I set up the Print Images action so that the orientation and printer selection is what I want. I have seen comments that this technique only works with the default printer, so you may find yourself wrestling with that.
And ignore the red text that says that the PDF files from the Watermark PDF action will not flow into the Image Files input to the Print Images action.
If you want to change the useless example document used in the action, replace the file called Bears.pdf in System > Library > Automator > Watermark PDF.action. Open the action with a control click and select Show Package Contents. It's in the Resources > English.lproj folder on a system that is using English language settings. If you want to get really hacky, you can examine the python script that does the watermarking that lives in the Resources folder.
Next I save the workflow as as a plug-in for a print workflow and call it Watermark3x4:
As long as the watermark image is correctly positioned I am done. To use this workflow from Aperture, I select my images and go to File > Print. I change the contact print settings to get it the way I want it (on one or many pages), but I don't press Print. I press Preview instead.
When Preview comes up and shows the first contact print page it has no watermarks.
To add the watermarking, I click the Print icon and then select the PDF button. I click on Watermark3x4 on the drop-down menu that appears and the pages print immediately. I click Cancel to get out of Preview.
The workflow I created lives in the Library > PDF Services folder in my home folder. To get rid of it I just drag it to the trash.
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Aperture 1.5: Watermarks Without Tools
2007-01-05
Instead of using Photoshop or other complex tools to make watermarks I use TextEdit and some simple techniques. I don't get text with transparency this way: everything created will have a background of some sort, but it is quick and effective (and free).
First I launch TextEdit and type in the text I want, centered if that is the effect I am after:
Then I select all the text and press command T to bring up the fonts panel:
and play around until I get what I want:
That is Snell Roundhand 36 pt. Very nice. I can also use the character palette to find other special characters and decorations. To get the character palette, turn it on in the International Preference Pane:
and click the checkbox at the bottom that displays it in the menu bar:
And then select it from the menu bar. I pick the character I want:
and press Insert to get the character into my document:
Now it looks the way I want it, I need to save it and take a snapshot of it by pressing command shift 4 and dragging a rectangle around the text like this:
That gives me a file called Picture 1.png on my desktop. That is the snapshot.
To set up this image as a watermark, I select an image and go File > Export > Export Versions and select Edit... from the Export Preset pop-up menu:
Then I create a new preset with the + button:
or select an existing preset. Then I drag the image file from the desktop into the watermark drop box:
To turn it on, I check the Show Watermark checkbox, I pick the location, and set the opacity to get the right look:
Scaling the watermark will apply it before the image is resized for export, resulting in a small watermark if a large scaling is used. Not scaling will keep the watermark the full size.
Clicking OK to close and Export to do the export I get my watermarked image:
For a different effect this can be inverted or have different colors. I go back to the TextEdit document, select the text and go File > Text > Table... to create a table that includes the text in a cell. Changing the table Rows and Columns counts to 1 and 1, gets me this:
It does not look very different, but since the text is now inside a table, I can change the text and the table cell background colors (and the cell border). I select the text and hit command shift C, then pick white from the Colors panel. Then I set the cell border to 0 px and select Color Fill for the table cell background:
Now I click on the color patch on the right and pick black from the Colors panel. The result is white on black which I can take a snapshot of as before:
And here is the final result with the transparency turned way down:
It would be a great addition to the watermark features if Aperture had a way of selecting a color range as being transparent and had the ability to invert the image it is given.
First I launch TextEdit and type in the text I want, centered if that is the effect I am after:
Then I select all the text and press command T to bring up the fonts panel:
and play around until I get what I want:
That is Snell Roundhand 36 pt. Very nice. I can also use the character palette to find other special characters and decorations. To get the character palette, turn it on in the International Preference Pane:
and click the checkbox at the bottom that displays it in the menu bar:
And then select it from the menu bar. I pick the character I want:
and press Insert to get the character into my document:
Now it looks the way I want it, I need to save it and take a snapshot of it by pressing command shift 4 and dragging a rectangle around the text like this:
That gives me a file called Picture 1.png on my desktop. That is the snapshot.
To set up this image as a watermark, I select an image and go File > Export > Export Versions and select Edit... from the Export Preset pop-up menu:
Then I create a new preset with the + button:
or select an existing preset. Then I drag the image file from the desktop into the watermark drop box:
To turn it on, I check the Show Watermark checkbox, I pick the location, and set the opacity to get the right look:
Scaling the watermark will apply it before the image is resized for export, resulting in a small watermark if a large scaling is used. Not scaling will keep the watermark the full size.
Clicking OK to close and Export to do the export I get my watermarked image:
For a different effect this can be inverted or have different colors. I go back to the TextEdit document, select the text and go File > Text > Table... to create a table that includes the text in a cell. Changing the table Rows and Columns counts to 1 and 1, gets me this:
It does not look very different, but since the text is now inside a table, I can change the text and the table cell background colors (and the cell border). I select the text and hit command shift C, then pick white from the Colors panel. Then I set the cell border to 0 px and select Color Fill for the table cell background:
Now I click on the color patch on the right and pick black from the Colors panel. The result is white on black which I can take a snapshot of as before:
And here is the final result with the transparency turned way down:
It would be a great addition to the watermark features if Aperture had a way of selecting a color range as being transparent and had the ability to invert the image it is given.
Aperture 1.5.1: Fix Broken Watermarks
2006-11-15
Watermarks are broken in Aperture 1.5.1. They are added before the image is scaled, so end up being tiny if you reduce for export. This means that all of the export presents in 1.5 are not usable for now.
Aperture 1.5 did this:
And Aperture 1.5.1 does this:
Victor Maldonato has a workaround, posted in Apple's Aperture forums. Create a watermark as big as your biggest image and use that. To keep the image file size down make sure that the watermark image consists of text plus transparency only (no background).
Aperture 1.5 did this:
And Aperture 1.5.1 does this:
Victor Maldonato has a workaround, posted in Apple's Aperture forums. Create a watermark as big as your biggest image and use that. To keep the image file size down make sure that the watermark image consists of text plus transparency only (no background).
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