Signatures with Elements

Today I was reading through the tutorials in Elements. I was looking for a way to add a signature to my pictures. Even though there is no way to add a signature through a menu, I just made a new layer and then typed the text in and made it as transparent as I would like. I know there are some people that are wanting ways to add signatures. This has solved my problem and now maybe it might solve yours.

 

Signatures are lame to be honest but some people have a need to spoil their work with them.

 

Nothing wrong with a little sig in blind emboss. It makes me feel like I have an extra layer of copyright protection (i've had labs call me about people trying to get photos that I had sold them copied).
Make an action for the different common sizes you produce to speed up your workflow.

 

There are good reasons to deface your own work. The best reason is to ensure that copies have no comercial value. With a text overlay the image is unusable for most applications so people are not motivated to violate your copyright. But the other side is that it does make your work look worse which does not help if you are trying to promote your work.

In my opinion the classic text on this subject was written by Ansel Adams when he explained in one of his many photography books ("The Print", I think) how and why he signed prints. He signed the white border outside of the image area but still on the face of the print with a #2 pencil.
He had quite a few reasons for this maybe a paragraph or two on the subject. But two reasons stand out (1) He did not want his signature to block the image and (2) a vewer n a galery should be able to know who the artist is.