What a watermark can and can't do
A watermark is a label burned into the pixels. It shows who made the photo, discourages casual reuse and marks a picture's purpose: "PREVIEW", "DRAFT", or on a copy of an ID document, "Copy for rental application only, 10/2026".
It can't stop copying. A corner mark can be cropped off in seconds, and a faint mark over a plain background can be retouched away, increasingly with automatic tools. Treat a watermark as a deterrent and a label, not as protection. The harder it is to remove, the more it covers the photo — that's the trade-off you're choosing.
Corner text or a tiled pattern
- A single mark goes in one of nine positions: corners, edge centres or the middle. Bottom-right is the classic signature spot — unobtrusive, but also the easiest to crop.
- Centre is harder to cut out without ruining the picture, but it sits on top of the subject.
- Tile repeats the text diagonally across the whole image. This is the right choice for client proofs, product photos sent before payment and copies of documents: there is no clean area left to crop.
Settings that work
- Text. Keep it short: a name, @handle, website or "© 2026 Name". Up to 60 characters.
- Size is a percentage of the image's shorter side (2–16%), so the same setting looks proportional on a 1000 px and a 6000 px photo. Around 4–6% suits a corner signature, 8–12% a central mark. In tile mode, a smaller size gives a denser pattern.
- Opacity from 10 to 100%. 30–50% is visible without spoiling the photo; for a tiled pattern 15–25% keeps the picture viewable; for proofs and documents go higher.
- Colour. White works on most photos; dark text is better on very bright scenes such as snow or a white product background. The text has a soft shadow, which keeps white readable on light areas.
Watermarking a batch
Drop several photos at once. The preview shows the first one; the same settings are applied to all, and you download a single ZIP with files named …-watermarked. Because the size is relative and the position is anchored to the edges, a mix of portrait and landscape photos comes out consistent.
Check the preview with your brightest and darkest photo in mind: a white mark that's clear on a night shot may vanish on a beach photo. If a batch is very mixed, split it into two runs with different colours.
Format and quality
The result keeps the format of each file: JPG stays JPG (saved at 92% quality), PNG stays PNG with its transparency, WebP stays WebP where the browser can encode it. Your original files are not changed, so keep them — the watermark is permanent in the new copy.
Current limits: the watermark is text only, in a bold system font; logo images aren't supported. Photos above about 16.7 megapixels are reduced to that size first, the canvas limit of Safari on iPhone.
A good order of steps
- Resize to the final size first. Shrinking a picture after watermarking blurs thin letters.
- Hide anything private — faces, licence plates, addresses — with Pixelate Image.
- Add the watermark here.
- If there's an upload limit, compress at the end.
Watermarking also re-saves the image without its EXIF data, including GPS location. To check a file before publishing, use the EXIF viewer. All of this runs in your browser; photos are never uploaded.