FERNADO VIDAL'S HUSBAND

Whether you make 100 percent digital work, or scan/upload your physical pieces (even photos of craft items), watermark your work.

There's the obvious reason for this, to keep people from stealing it and rebranding it as their own, but it's not just about trying to get clout, in many cases, if you've posted unmarked, high-resolution images, they can upload that to sites like RedBubble, and be making money selling your items.

Even if you use sites like RedBubble to sell your own items, people will screen cap your images and sell them as low-quality rip-offs, and you have to contact the site to have them taken down, and it's a whole thing. RB does offer adding watermarks, and if you want to protect your work--for the love of god, use the feature.

NAOW, we're facing an entirely new kind of theft, in AI scraping, where these programs are hoovering up people's work illegally, learning from it, and reproducing garbage from it. As we speak, tech bros are lobbying for the end of IP laws to allow them to do this legally. AND, that's not even talking about the environmental damage these data centers popping up all over the country are causing, or the intense ruining of the quality-of-life it's causing the residents they're building them on top of.

So, if you want to avoid these things, you have to get used to the idea of ruining your art, intentionally. This is hard for a lot of us to wrap our minds around, but it's A MUST to protect yourself, your bottom line, and fight AI and eco-destruction. It's also super-simple, and doesn't really matter what program you use, I would guess you could even do it on a phone, but I am B-E-G-G-I-N-G you all to get back into computers, and learn how to do things like a pro.

HOW TO DO IT:

This won't be a specific tutorial, but it's so simple, you can just apply it to whatever program you use. The commands might be in a different place, but it'll get you to the same conclusion.

First, open your image, whatever it may be, it's up to you and how you share on whether or not you use your full-size HQ versions, or a smaller internet-friendly image.

Next, create a new layer, or open a new doc the same dimensions as the image you want to mark. ⭐️I suggest having a large-sized template that you can reuse and apply to all of your works, as needed.⭐️ Sometimes the color or opacity needs adjusted to show up enough to obscure the image.

From here, use a stamp, cut-out, clip image, or you can make something simple. It can even be your name, or your logo. From there cover your canvas with it, you can make an evenly-spaced pattern, or make it random. You do have to make sure it doesn't obscure the image you're trying to protect too much, it should be noticeable, but not overtake the image. After that, drop the transparency (opacity) down to around 25 percent, and keep it monochromatic so it doesn't compete with your work. Then save. If you're using Photoshop keep it as a Photoshop file, otherwise save as a png so that you can easily maintain and work with the transparency--JUST REMEMBER if you do save as a png, remove or make invisible any canvas background you worked on, so it saves as a transparency.

And there you have it! It really is that simple.

Here's a couple more pro-tips to save you time and trouble:

⭐️Make sure the watermark is small and repeating, this is less competitive with the image, and makes it so it can't be cropped out of the image--say if you just put one mark at the bottom. A clever editor can remove watermarks by hand, but if you make it annoying enough, they won't bother.

⭐️If your transparency watermark layer is not showing up against the color or colors of the image, even if you turn up the opacity--invert it! Use the invert command and it will change to the opposite color, from black to white, for instance.

⭐️If you are using a sales site like RedBubble, make sure the image you upload for your products does NOT have the watermark on it, or it will show up on all of your products. Just enable their watermarking feature during the listing process.

``my god pouts on the cover of the magazine`` (starfuckers inc. -- NIN)

Edd's hands are slightly rough. Shorter fingers, especially his pinky. Has a pencil bump on each side of his hands, because I do for some reason. Bites his nails when stressed.

Tom's are the most fucked up hands you'll ever see. Never are they not covered in scratches or wounds. Either from his guitar or his drunk rampage.

Matt's are the most delicate hands in the cast (he takes good care of them). His fingers are long and boney. His hand is really veiny and pale because he's a vampire and shi. Loves painting his nails.