tnturk Loc: Gallatin Tennessee

Some people put their names on their work with a (c) copyright. How do you copyright and how do you get the symbol?

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

In brief, to actually Register a Copyright you file two copies of your work with a fee with the U.S. Government. To save money perhaps you can file / apply for for images as a Collected Work, so perhaps 100 images can be protected with one fee. Singly it can get expensive. The symbol it self can be created with a word-processor like MS-Word, you type ( c ) and it creates ©. Then you can copy and paste the © into a Photoshop or Lightroom image. There may be a way for creating special symbols directly with the Text functions/tools of CC software but I have not figure that out yet, so I Copy & Paste.

https://www.copyright.gov/

It is all in here somewhere. Probably start at Register.

As will be pointed out legally you Own copyright to your images or writing when it is created. To enforce it though, say through the Courts it must be Registered and Recorded. Again you may consider if you actually want it R & R with the Library of Congress to "publish" portfolios of images as Collected Works. But most of us unless we do commercially viable photography just mark our images as ©2017 Your Name or "Title of Photograph" ©2017 Your Name. Have fun with photography in any case.

Mac Loc: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia now Hernando Co. Fl.

As soon as you take a picture you own the copyright, if you would want to sue someone for using your image without your permission, you would have to have registered your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office. Marking your image with (c) and your name has little or no legal standing.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You're confusing a watermark symbol with copyright. A bit of reading will help clarify:

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-4147-1.html
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-478209-1.html
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-477890-1.html

Designdweeb Loc: Metro NYC & East Stroudsburg, PA

Option G on a Mac. Placing it depends on the program you're using to process the image. Also use the metadata file to insert your information. The symbol is a warning, you would need to follow up on unpermitted usages.

rwilson1942 Loc: Houston, TX

© To get the copyright symbol hold down the alt key and type 0169.
You own the copyright as soon as you click the shutter.
If you are serious about copyright you should register the copyright.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

OK, cool, thanks. That does work in both MS-Word (2016) and Ps CS6. Now to remember Alt 0169 to ©. That saves a step and having to start up MS-Word.