****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.
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.
3. Open the File. Open your file in Photoshop. Use a Levels adjustment to make your signature as clear as possible.
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.
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.
6. Select everything else. Invert the selection by choosing Select > Inverse.
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.
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.
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.
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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