How to Turn Your Hand Signature Into a Watermark in Photoshop

This week, Colin Smith of PhotoshopCAFE explains how to make a watermark out of your signature in Photoshop using a real signature on paper. The signature can be captured via your cell phone camera without the help of a scanner. This solution is a good alternative from classic logo watermark. The process is really easy and takes less five minutes.

First, Colin shows how to draw a good looking signature. Use a white piece of paper and take a picture with a camera or your smartphone directly above the paper sheet to avoid distortions. The next step consists of converting this picture in a custom brush in Photoshop. The brush will act as a preset that can be re-used at any time. Then play with the level tool to adjust the contrast and obtain a perfect white background over the black signature and get rid of the paper texture. This step facilitates the work of the Lasso tool to extract the signature. Finally create a brush preset and save it to the cloud if you want to use it on a different computer.

The end result is an organic looking signature watermark. For standard logo watermark made out of a regular photo, Colin did another short video tutorial that shows the process in less than three minutes.