Add a watermark to an image

Watermark Tool: what it does and when to use it

The Watermark Tool writes your name, website or copyright notice onto a photo, either once or tiled across the whole picture at an angle. Size, colour, opacity and angle are all adjustable, and the preview updates as you change them.

A single small mark in a corner looks professional but is easy to crop off. A faint tiled mark across the whole image is much harder to remove and still lets people see the photo, which is why stock photo previews use it. Opacity between about 20 and 40 percent is usually visible without spoiling the picture; white text with a little transparency works on most photos.

No watermark is impossible to remove, and a watermark does not replace copyright, which you hold automatically when you take a photo. It does make casual reuse harder and tells people who to credit. Keep your unmarked originals, and share smaller copies online: a 1600 pixel photo is far less useful to someone who wants to print it. To add a single caption instead, use Add Text to Image.