Glass Watermark

As a graphics designer I do a lot of business via email. People tell me what they are looking for, and I try to emulate it in a computer graphic. Since you never know what type of person you are dealing with, you should always embelish your design with some kind of watermark. Nothing can stop them from using it with the watermark, but if you do it properly, the least you will get is some free advertisement to your website or company if they decide to rip you off and use it anyway. Fortunately, most people are not this way. I have not been cheated yet, and I plan to keep it that way.

Photoshop makes watermarks pretty simple. This tutorial is for people who want thier watermark to be as cool as thier graphic.

The first thing you will want to do is open or create a file with the text that you want to create the watermark with. I will be using one that will promote my design site. Remember that a watermark will always perform better with a bolder type of font.

Once you have the text that you will be using, you will want to open the blending options pop up window. Click on the little f icon in the lower right corner of the layers palette and then click on "Blending Options".

The blending options window should be highlighted. Use the settings as seen below. The opacity setting is something you will want to play with until you find what works best for you and your pictures. 50% works well for me most of the time.

Next we will set the properties of the "Drop Shadow".

Then the "Inner Shadow"

Outer Glow

And last but not least, the "Bevel and Emboss" properties. Don't forget to make sure that the "Contour" box is checked.

When you have all of these settings in place, you shoud have something similar to this.

Notice how it takes on the color of the background. Drag it around, and watch how it changes depending on the background.