What a watermark does to your image

The Watermark Tool overlays your text on an image so that anyone who reposts it carries your credit along with it. You get five placement presets, the four corners and the center, plus a tiled mode that repeats the mark in a grid across the entire picture. An opacity slider controls how assertive the text is, and the rendering uses white letters with a subtle dark outline, which stays legible on light skies and dark shadows alike. The watermark scales with your image width, so it looks proportionate on a phone snapshot and on a full-resolution export.

Choosing position and opacity

  • Corners are the professional default: visible credit, minimal interference. Bottom-right is the convention most viewers expect.
  • Center announces ownership loudly and shields the focal point. Use it for proofs and previews you do not want used as-is.
  • Tiled repeats the mark everywhere, which makes cropping it out impractical. It is the strongest option for client proofs and paid content samples.
  • Opacity around 30 to 50 reads as a quiet signature; 60 and above turns the mark into a barrier. Busy images need higher opacity than clean ones.

When to watermark an image

Watermark portfolio pieces before posting them where right-click saving is trivial. Send clients proofs with a centered or tiled mark, then deliver clean files after approval. Marketplace sellers mark product photos so competitors cannot lift them straight into rival listings. Photographers sharing event galleries add a corner credit so reshared images keep pointing back to them. Designers stamp drafts with the word "sample" or a revision note so an unapproved version never gets mistaken for the final. A watermark is also a courtesy to honest people: it tells them who to credit and where to ask for the original, which turns silent reposts into links and inquiries.

What a watermark can and cannot do

Be realistic about the protection. A corner mark deters casual copying but disappears with a five-second crop, while tiled marks force a would-be thief into serious editing work. No watermark makes theft impossible; it raises the effort and makes authorship obvious. Your legal rights exist with or without the mark, and the image copyright basics guide explains what those rights actually cover. For images that should not circulate at all, a watermark is the wrong instrument: share them unlisted instead, as described in the private image sharing guide. And before publishing photos anywhere, consider stripping location metadata with the EXIF viewer and remover, since a watermark protects ownership but does nothing for privacy.

Your original file is never modified. The tool produces a separate hosted copy with its own link, which is unlocked with a free account and stays permanently in your gallery.