****You can view the updated version of this article here: https://photofocus.com/2015/09/29/creating-a-signature-watermark-with-adobe-photoshop-cc/ ****

People often ask me how I made my signature into my own copyright logo on my photos. Here is a step by step guide on making your own signature or drawing into your own logo or signature file.

1. Practice. Grab a few sharpie of different sizes and practice your signature over and over with different sizes and widths. I found that the thinner sharpies were better in regards to more detail in the ink.

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2. Scan Your Signature. Scan your paper at a very high resolutions such as 600dpi and save it as a JPEG or TIFF file. Don’t have a scanner? You can try taking a photo of the signature.

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3. Open the File. Open your file in Photoshop. Use a Levels adjustment to make your signature as clear as possible.

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4. Set the Crop. Crop your scan down to you best signature that you want to use. You can use the crop as well to straighten and level out your signature.

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5. Select the Signature. Use the Magic Wand tool (W) and select your signature. If your name has a break in it, hold down the shift key to highlight all the words.

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6. Select everything else. Invert the selection by choosing Select > Inverse.

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7. Copy your signature. Choose Edit > Copy to copy your signature to the clip board.

8. Start a new File. Create a new document and make the background transparent.

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9. Move Your Signature. Choose Edit > Paste to add your signature onto the new document you created. You can crop down the document size to fix you signature as needed. I also had extra text under my signature that explains more about what I do.

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10. Create the PNG File. Save your image as a PNG file by choosing File > Save For Web. Be sure to choose a PNG file and make sure the the Transparency box is checked. This will allow you to have the transparent background.

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11 Use it Often. Now you can drop your new signature PNG onto your images and files you want to share. It can be added in Photoshop or used as a watermark in Lightroom as well.

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