How To Professionally Scrub Trademarks From NIL Content in 9 Steps
In commercial or promotional content, use of trademarks — for example, the UW “W” — almost always requires a license. Licenses are expensive and time-consuming to get, so many brands come up with creative workarounds.
If you look closely, most ads featuring professional athletes don’t include real uniforms. Most Seattleites have seen this Beacon Plumbing ad with Marshawn — but did you notice there are no Seahawks logos?
If you want to use NIL promotional content without a UW trademark license, you have a couple options:
Make sure student-athletes aren’t wearing trademarks (in this case, it’s wise to provide the clothes you want them to wear)
Remove trademarks from photos after the fact
For those opting for #2, here’s a quick tutorial for removing trademarks that keeps your content looking good! This may seem overwhelming, but try it once. It’ll be a breeze next time, and it’s a skill that will come in handy many times over.
How to scrub trademarks from photos
In this example, we’ll be removing the Montlake Futures logo from a photo of Jordan Perryman.
Step 1️⃣: Go to photopea.com (a free, online version of Photoshop).
Step 2️⃣: Click “Open From Computer” and upload the photo you want to edit.
Step 3️⃣: Zoom in on the trademark you want to edit by clicking View > Zoom In (or use keyboard shortcut Cmd + “+”).
Step 4️⃣: On the left size menu, find the Brush icon. Click it and a small menu will be revealed. Click “Clone Tool”.
Step 🖐. “Clone Tool” allows you to clone one area of the photo onto another. In this case, you’ll want to “clone” a blank area of the t-shirt onto the logo part of the t-shirt.
To select the area you want to clone, hold down “option” on your keyboard. The mouse should display a small plus sign. Click on a blank area of the t-shirt (or whatever area you want to clone). Release the “option” key.
Step 6️⃣. Start painting on top of the logo by clicking and dragging your mouse. The circle represents your “brush” and displays what the “paint” will look like. As you paint, a small plus sign will indicate the area of the photo that is being cloned.
TIP a: You can always hold down the “option” key and change the area being cloned.
TIP b: You can change the size of your “brush”. Right below “Edit” in the upper toolbar, find the dot next to a downward arrow. Drag the “Size” slider to the right to increase brush size.
TIP c: To undo an action, click Edit > Undo (or use keyboard shortcut Cmd + Z). If you want to undo multiple steps, find the list of steps taken under the “History” tab in the upper right. Click on a step to go back to a previous version.
Step 7️⃣. Once the logo is covered, zoom out (Edit > Zoom Out or Cmd + “-”) to check your handiwork.
Step 🎱. If there are any obvious edges left, find and click the band-aid icon on the left side menu. This is the “Spot Healing Brush Tool”. Click on any funky parts and let Photoshop work its magic. You may want to adjust the brush size and placement to get this perfect.
Step 9️⃣. Click File > Export As > PNG. Change your file name if you want, and keep all other settings the same.
All done! What logo?
