It’s a new year, and that means updating your copyright information! For photographers, this oftentimes means making updates in more than one place, like your Camera, post-processing software, and possibly your website.

On Your Camera

All camera models will be a little different, but they should each have a place to enter your info. For this example, I’ll show how to set your info using a Canon 6D. (If you have utility software for your camera, then you may be able to edit your information on your computer. Then, connect your camera for it to update.)

  1. First, go into the Menu and locate the setting for the copyright information.
  2. Next, select Enter copyright details to enter in the copyright terms, along with the year. (If you have not done this step in the past, I would suggest entering your author name as well.)
  3. Then, enter in the copyright details. Since there is no copyright symbol, I prefer to just added parentheses between the letter c.
  4. This is how this information looks inside of Lightroom after importing the photo:

In Lightroom

Heres how to create (or change) a copyright metadata preset.

  1. First, go into the Library module.
  2. Then, in the menu at the top select Metadata > Edit Presets
  3. In the window that pops up, check the IPTC Copyright box and fill in the boxes however you like.
  4. Next, save your settings as a new preset.
  5. Now you can apply this preset to images using the Metadata panel on the right, or when importing your images into Lightroom.

To read an in-depth article on creating Lightroom copyright presets, please click here.

On Your Website or Blog

Many photographers also have websites and blogs where they share their work or interact with clients. The copyright for most blogs is typically at the bottom of the page, and if its not updated automatically then you’ll need to go in and make the change yourself. Oftentimes this is a change to the footer, and it will differ for almost every website.

For my blog, I have to go into my theme options and make the changes to the footer. Also, if you have an additional plugins that require an updated year, such as the footer of an RSS feed, don’t forget to change that as well!

Watermarks

If you use watermarks on your photos and typically add the date, don’t forget to update that as well! Here are a few articles to get you started: