# Lightroom watermarks not showing up each time.



## Nyxxie (Aug 12, 2010)

Ok I make a watermark in LR3 and went through all my selected images in the preview. Each one had the water mark. When I went to export them only about 1/2 had the watermark after export. There is no reason why some do and some don't that I can tell.

Any ideas?


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## mldiggs (Aug 30, 2010)

Can anyone help with this? I'm having the same problem.


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## Brad Snyder (Aug 31, 2010)

Have you tried Lr 3.2 RC? Which may have addressed some bugs.
Not showing up how? In export, web, slideshow? 

I believe there may be a remaining watermark bug, if you're using the Limit File Size JPG Export option. Hopefully this will be addressed when 3.2 goes to full release.


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## mldiggs (Aug 31, 2010)

In my case, I can see the preview, but after export, the watermark is not there. I was doing a small jpeg for forum sharing, so that might be the problem. I'll test it with other file sizes/export options. I just exported to photobucket, but perhaps I need to Print to File or something like that?

I also tried to do the frame watermark function, but I couldn't get the frame to show up at all (and it seemed to only give me gray as a frame option). In the latter case, I might just be misunderstanding the function. I assumed it meant I could export with a decorative frame and copyright info on the frame rather than the "image" itself, but perhaps that needs to be applied in another program.


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 31, 2010)

3.2 final is now available and should have fixed the watermark bug.


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## drichi09 (Sep 5, 2010)

Unfortunately, it has not been fixed on mine. I rarely had problems with the vanishing watermark before, but not it only works about 6'% of the time. If it won't work for some reason, nothing I have tried will resolve it. This seems to happen after changing to a different watermark.

Interestingly, I cannot edit a watermark and save the edited water mark. It gives me a new watermark template instead of actually editing the original.


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## Andrew Turner (Sep 12, 2010)

I appear to have a similar problem. The watermarking worked perfectly for me until the update to 3.2, now it's not working at all. Hope there's a solution out there as when it works its great. Thanks Andrew


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## Andrew Turner (Sep 12, 2010)

I had a bit more of play after checking some other forums. Looks like it works for some fonts and not others. So I got it working but not ideal as I quite liked my old signature.


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## Jenn4639 (Sep 12, 2010)

I'm a week into my 3'-day trial and have had no success in getting a watermark to show up when I export photos. I've tried different fonts, different pictures, different colors...Everything!! It looks great on the preview in the Watermark Editor, but nothing's there when I export! I'm so incredibly frustrated!! I've spent hours trying to research this problem and haven't found a solution!! HELP! This is pretty much the deciding factor in whether to purchase or not...

Thanks!


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 12, 2010)

Hi Jenn, welcome to the forum!

That does sound frustrating. Probably a silly question, but are you definitely turning on the watermark in the export dialog? If that's not it, and it's rarely that simple, any chance of a screenshot of your export dialog, expanded so we can see more of it, and also your watermark dialog? Maybe we'll be able to spot something from there. Do you know how to do that?


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## b_gossweiler (Sep 12, 2010)

Jenn,

There seems to be an issue with LR3.2 and Open Type Fonts in Watermarking, which Adobe is aware of (see this post in the U2U forum).

Now don't ask me which fonts are Open Type, and which ones do really work (True Type, Type 1, ...), and I also cannot reproduce the issue here. But I'd suggest you try some more different fonts and see if this resolves your issue.

Beat


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## Jenn4639 (Sep 13, 2010)

Hi Beat!

I'm going to keep trying different fonts but I've even tried the generic "Simple Copyright Watermark" that's already loaded in there and I get nothing with that one either...


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## Jenn4639 (Sep 13, 2010)

Hi Victoria!

Here's a few screenshots...

You can see in the one of the Watermark Editor that my watermark shows up on the preview just fine...

Hope you can point out some very simple mistake I'm making before I go crazy!!

Thanks!!


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 13, 2010)

The simple copyright watermark might have been empty if you don't have metadata in the copying metadata field, so I'm still going with Beat's idea of the font.

Just try it with something really nasty like Arial or Comic Sans.


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## b_gossweiler (Sep 13, 2010)

You might want to give the options I attached a try, they work for me. If they do work, go from there and try some other.

 Beat


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## Jim Wilde (Sep 13, 2010)

Beat, I've tried using exactly the same settings as Jenn (Text, Font, Size, Location) and all other Export settings.....and the Watermark exports properly.

However, that was on a few jpegs....have just tried it on a DNG and a Tiff derivative of the same DNG and guess what? No Watermark! So then I used YOUR settings on the same DNG, and this time DO get the watermark.

First thoughts are that it is something weird going on between File Type and one or other of Jenn's particular settings. Quickly changed the Font in YOUR settings to Lucida Handwriting and that worked fine, so I guess it'll be either location or size or shadow coupled with the file type. 

Got to go out now, maybe you'll get a chance to do a bit more experimentation....if not I'll maybe get some time later today.

BTW, question for Jenn....what file type are you working with?

EDIT: Same problem on a CR2. Bit more rapid testing, and I can finally get Jenn's watermark to appear top centre, shadowed, Lucida Handwriting font, but ONLY by reducing the size to 1'. 2' doesn't work, so the limit may be between 1' and 2'.
However, Font is also a factor I think...as Beat's settings using size 2' is fine, but using Beat's settings with size 2' and Lucida is NOT.


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## Jim Wilde (Sep 13, 2010)

OK, well I've tried a variety of other fonts, both Open Type and True Type, and haven't yet encountered a problem other than with the Lucida font family.....there may be others of course, but someone else can test those!  
BTW, the cutoff size point for Lucida seems to be 11....go over that and the watermark isn't produced (on my PC that is!).

At the moment all I can say to Jenn is that if you want to use Lucida Handwriting, drop the proportional size down to 11.....but if you want to use the larger size, choose a different font type (Comic Sans MS maybe?).

Sorry I can't find a magic fix.


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## b_gossweiler (Sep 13, 2010)

Jim,

I've also played around with the fonts yesterday and couldn't come up with a logic behind the problems. I know of a guy in another forum where Arial did not work but when using something else than Arial did.

So the best of advice I can give is trial and error 

Beat


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## Jim Wilde (Sep 13, 2010)

Yes, it's truly bizarre...there are many fonts which "work", and many which don't. Arial doesn't work, but Arial Narrow and Arial Black do. Go figure.

And there is no consistency either.....Lucida Handwriting works fine on jpegs, but Arial does not. Lucida works on Raw below size 11, but Arial does not.

What I have been able to check so far is that when you are creating a Watermark, if when typing the text for it enter a word followed by a space and watch the preview....for all the "problem" fonts I've encountered so far when you press the spacebar after entering a word the preview disappears. The outline box is still there when you move the cursor into the preview but the text has gone. Enter a letter after the space and the text returns, backspace to remove the space and the text returns....totally useless info, BUT it tends to indicate which fonts you will have trouble with on the watermarks, and which ones will be OK. Again, go figure.

Have attached a couple of screenshots to better indicate what I'm talking about. First shot after enetering the word Copywright, second shot after pressing the spacebar.

Do Adobe know there's a problem in this area, or do we need to file a bug report?


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## Brad Snyder (Sep 13, 2010)

Yes, they know.


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## b_gossweiler (Sep 13, 2010)

Jim,

I think you can also see the difference in behaviour of different fonts easily when choosing size "fit" instead of proportional. Some fonts show in the preview, some don't.

But then, in my case, they *always *show in the export, even the ones that behave strangely in the test above, including all kinds of Arial  .

Beat


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## Jenn4639 (Sep 14, 2010)

Agh!! This is craziness!! 

I've been trying to get the watermark to work on JPGs and CR2s...

Based on the info above I have now been able to get Lucida Handwriting to work on both a JPG and a CR2 but only at the small size of 1'...

Jim, did you say you got this font to work at any size on JPGs?? Grrr...

Do y'all think Adobe will be able to come up with a fix that doesn't leave us with so much trial and error to get our watermarks to export?


In the meantime, thanks for all y'all's help! I really appreciate it!!


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## johnbeardy (Sep 14, 2010)

It happens on my Win7 64 bit box with Arial. I'm sure Adobe will fix this before too long. Until then, find a font that works and stick to it (Trebuchet, Berlin, StopD, Verdana)

John


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## Jim Wilde (Sep 14, 2010)

[quote author=Jenn4639 link=topic=1'7'3.msg74124#msg74124 date=1284429997]
Agh!! This is craziness!! 

I've been trying to get the watermark to work on JPGs and CR2s...

Based on the info above I have now been able to get Lucida Handwriting to work on both a JPG and a CR2 but only at the small size of 1'...

Jim, did you say you got this font to work at any size on JPGs?? Grrr...

[/quote]

Yes I did, but only using a few jpegs that I had in my test LR system. So this morning I've experimented a little more and discovered that it's not a *file-type* issue with certain fonts, but rather a *file-size *(and by that I think I mean pixel dimension). Note the "I think" there, as there is little consistency with this problem, and to be perfectly honest I would echo John's advice and use a font that doesn't have these issues!

However, FWIW, taking your preferred font of Lucida Handwriting with a preferred proportional size of 32 I *was* able to create your watermark using a CR2 and a DNG, as well as most of my jpegs....the key factor seems to be the need to resize (pixel dimensions) on export. With a 25mb CR2 with pixels dimensions of 5616x3744 I found that as long as I kept the long edge at or below 222' then the watermark was produced. Go up to 2221 and above and it wasn't. Unfortunately it doesn't work that consistently, as it seems to be some factor relating to the dimensions of the file....so a 4672x31'4 DNG will export the watermark at somewhere between 222' and 3'''. 

Do you see how crazy this is? The smaller the original file, the bigger the exported size can be for the watermark to show (which is why all the jpegs I tried yesterday worked, as they all had relatively small dimensions). 

So, armed with that info, it should be possible to work out by trial and error what export dimensions you could get away with if you want to stick with Lucida and size 32....but if reducing the image size on export is not an option, you're back with finding a different font to use.

EDIT: Of course you can also experiment with reducing the proportional size as well, e.g. reducing to say 24 lets you increase the long edge by some amount (somewhere between 25'' and 3''').

More inconsistency....this "fix" doesn't work the same for Arial. With that I had to reduce the long edge to around 1''' pixels to get a watermark with a 32 size setting.

Don't think I can help any more with this....I'm just going to stick with a font I know works, otherwise I'll rapidly be losing the will to live!


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## johnbeardy (Sep 14, 2010)

Yes, I can confirm some of that and agree that export size may be connected to the problem. I set a watermark in Arial font, and it appears when the exported image is (say) 1''' pixels, but not when the image is 3''' pixels. As Jim says, crazy.

John


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## Nyxxie (Aug 12, 2010)

Ok I make a watermark in LR3 and went through all my selected images in the preview. Each one had the water mark. When I went to export them only about 1/2 had the watermark after export. There is no reason why some do and some don't that I can tell.

Any ideas?


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## Jenn4639 (Sep 14, 2010)

Haha! Good times!

Thanks again for taking the time to look into this and experiment with me!


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## b_gossweiler (Dec 8, 2010)

Has anyone who experienced or was able to reproduce this problem tested with LR3.3? The release notes say:





> "Text watermarks or portions of text watermarks could have failed to be applied to images on export"



Beat


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## kgilby (Mar 29, 2011)

Watermarks suddenly stopped working for me as well.  In LR 3.3 watermarking was working fine, and the other day I noticed that after exporting, no images have watermarks.  Has there been a fix issued that anyone knows of?


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## johnbeardy (Mar 29, 2011)

I previously experienced the bug and repeated my tests with 3.4RC. Watermarks were correctly exported.

Try with 3.4RC and/or provide more details of the font you were using, and of image size. Sure you are using Edit Watermarks (not the simple watermark)

John


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## kgilby (Mar 29, 2011)

John, before  going to 3.4RC, I tried changing the color of the font today and that worked.  So, I'll keep using it as is until/unless it goes haywire again.  Thanks.

Ken


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## NolaMar (May 4, 2011)

I'm really glad to see that I'm not the only person having trouble with watermarking in LR3. (You know what I mean.) I thought I must be missing something but now realize there are still bugs in the program and it's not anything I'm doing. I'm disappointed too, that if I want to get consistent watermarks I'm going to have to spend a ton of time experimenting with fonts, sizes, image formats etc. They need to get this fixed! I don't have that kind of time. This is a post I just made on the Adobe-LR forum. 

_I continue to have trouble getting watermarking to work consistently in LR3. I thought maybe it had to do with permissions in certain folders, or maybe a LR setting I don't know about that I need to change. But it just seems strange how it works sometimes and not others. I use the same font for all my watermarks. (Lucidia) 

Here is my recent example: I exported 25 images without a watermark. Because of the trouble I have with it in LR, I use the SmugMug WM feature for my galleries there. But I wanted to put 7 of these images on my Face Book page so I really wanted to reduce the size & watermark them in LR first. When I exported these 7 images, LR only put the WM on 2 of the 7 pictures, but not the other 5. I just can't figure out what is going on with this. 

Please, can anyone help me figure this out???_


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