Writing.Leave Your Mark with The Gimp
Last updated on Tue Jan 20, 2009 |

When you create and distribute digital images online (even images governed by non-restrictive licenses), you may decide that you'd like to mark the image with your name, your website's URL, or some other identifier. Usually, you want the mark to be identifiable and noticeable without being too distracting or taking away from the overall image. This process is often called watermarking, and it can be implemented through most graphic manipulation software. This HOWTO will show you one way to do this using The GNU Image Manipulation Program (aka The Gimp).

Before beginning, I should point out a few things. First off, I'm by no means a professional graphic designer or artist, and I'm not even an expert on using The Gimp. The process I'm about to show you is one I discovered on my own, and there may be much better ways to do this. For my purposes, the end result of my technique produces the look I want, so it works for me. It may work for you too. If you'd like to see an example of what it'll look like, check out the bottom right-hand corner of this image. Secondly, all of my instructions pertain to version 2.2 of The Gimp. I can't guarantee that the exact location of the menu options will be the same in other versions. (On a side note, if you don't already know about The Gimp, you can find out more and download it for free from http://www.gimp.org. The Gimp is a free, powerful, image manipulation program that can be used on Linux/Unix, Mac, and Windows operating systems.)

And now, the seven easy steps I follow to produce a watermark like the one on the image above:

1. Start up The Gimp and open the image you'd like to add the watermark to.
2. Click on the eyedropper tool in the main Gimp toolbox to select it. Then, using the eyedropper, click on the area in your image where you will put your watermark. This will set the color of text you will use in step three.
3. Next, select the text tool from the main Gimp toolbox. At this point, you'll have to decide what properties you want to set for your text (i.e. font, size, hinting, antialiasing, etc.). This is entirely up to you, but I do recommend that you consider using a font size that isn't so big that it detracts from your overall image. And, just in case anyone wants to know, on a 1024 x 768 image I use: 12px Nimbus Sans L Bold with hinting, antialiasing, and left justification and 0.0 indent, line spacing, and letter spacing.
4. Type the text you'd like to appear in your watermark (e.g. your name, your website's URL, etc.), and press the "Ok" button.
5. In the image window, open the "Script-Fu" menu then select "Layer Effects -> Outer Glow..."
   
   [01-20-09 UPDATE] When I first posted this tutorial, I had completely forgotten that the Outer Glow layer effect doesn't exist in The Gimp by default. If you find that you don't have this effect already installed in your copy of The Gimp (or if you'd just like more information about Script-Fu and what you can do with it) visit http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-concepts-script-fu.html for answers to all of your questions.
6. In the "Outer Glow" dialog, you'll have a few options you can set. What you choose will probably depend on the font you chose in step 3 as well as your own personal taste. The "Color" selector will determine the color that immediately surrounds your text while the "Glow Radius" and "Blur Radius" will determine how far away and how blurry the color around the text should be. Lastly, the opacity will determine the opacity of the color around the text. You may have to try several settings until you find the one that's right for you. In general, I've found these settings to work well with the font face and font size that I use: #ffffff Glow Color with a Glow Radius of 1, Blur Radius of 5, and Opacity of 25. When everything's set the way you want, press "Ok."
7. You should now see your watermark with a slight glow on your original image. If you don't like where the watermark is, just use the move tool to move the watermark layer around until the watermark is where you want it.

I hope you found this tutorial helpful, and if anyone has any tips or tricks for doing this better and/or more efficiently that you'd like to send my way, please just contact me.