How to Logo Your Photos

Many people have asked me how I logo my photos. It's a simple brush in Photoshop. If you are selling on the web, Photoshop is a program you need. While it's not the easiest thing to use, many community colleges offer classes. It is a wonderful program to have skills in!

Why have a logo? It sets your work apart. It gives folks something immediate to reveal the maker. They don't have to look at my bead and wonder, "Who made that?" The logo is a great reminder! I also belong to several bead teams on Etsy and Facebook. It's easy for my work to get lost in the crowd... but not with a logo! It also makes it a little bit harder for those photo stealers to swipe your work! First, a look at that logo: 

1. SCAN the image: For the Holly's Folly logo, I scanned the image into my computer and I kept it fairly large. It's best to use black ink on clean white paper. Scan the image at 300 dpi even though the logo may be used mostly onscreen which only requires a dpi of 72. The higher resolution keeps the image crisp and clean and if you ever need to print your work, your logo will always look snazzy! 
2. MAKE the Brush: Open your image file in Photoshop. Go to your Edit Menu / Define Brush Preset. A new window pops open asking you to name your bush. Keep the title short as the brush selection window will be tiny. I made three brushes for Holly's Folly: HFlogo (flat / straight), HFlogoR (angled to the right), and HFlofoL (angled to the left). 
3. SAVE the Brush: Just because the brush appears in your brushes window...doesn't mean it's saved there! If you change brush palettes, you can lose that brush! To save: a) Make sure you are in the brushes palette. b) Go to the Brushes pull down menu and c) over to the brushes fly out menu. d) Select Save Tool Presets. A menu will open requesting a name. I store my brushes in my Basic Brushes that came with Photoshop but I name it Logos.
   
   
   
   
   
4. USE the Brush: Select the brush palette from the left side tool bar. A brush menu appears across the top of the screen with a pull down menu. To the right of that is a symbol & number that represents the current brush selected with another pull down menu. Click that and all the brushes available in this tool preset appear. Click on the logo you want.  Here, I've selected the logo for my stamp business.
   

An outline of your brush will appear and it is usually too large for your photo. I had to take a photo of my dusty screen for an example you could see.The red arrows are pointing to the white outline of my logo and it is way too big! To make it smaller, I hit the [ symbol repeatedly until it fits the area needed. To make it bigger, hit the ] key. Click where you want the brush to appear.

Here is the finished photo of the image using that logo:

5. Use COLOR:To make things more interesting and make your logo stand out, use the eye dropper tool on the left tool palette to select a color in your image. This changes the color in the foreground color palette of the left tool bar and that changes the color your tool will stamp.

 

Summary: 

1) Scan image / large file / set to black and white.  

2) Edit / Define Brush Preset

3) From the Brushes flyout menu / Save tool Presets

4) Select the brush from the brushes drop down / size using the bracket tools [ & ]

5) Change the color to match your image  using eyedropper or foreground color palette tools.

6) Click to make the brush appear on the photo.

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