Add a Watermark to Photos

Good to know

• The watermarked copy is a new file, so the camera metadata (EXIF: date, camera settings, GPS location and the copyright field) is not copied into it. Your original files are not changed. To check what a photo carries, use the EXIF viewer.
• Every photo keeps its format: JPG, PNG and WebP come back as the same type with “-watermarked” added to the name. HEIC photos are saved as JPG.
• Large photos, 48 MP and up, take a few seconds each. They are processed one at a time so that a phone does not run out of memory.
• Your settings are kept in this browser only, so they are ready next time. Clearing the browser’s site data removes them.

Why photographers watermark, and what it cannot do

A visible mark tells anyone who sees the photo who made it, and it travels with the picture when it is shared, screenshotted or reposted without a credit. It also makes casual reuse less tempting: a marked photo is less useful to someone who wants to pass it off as their own or use it in an advert. For proofs, a mark across the picture lets a client choose from the gallery without having a finished file to print.

It is a deterrent, not a lock. A mark in a corner can be cropped off, and determined people can edit out most marks. It does not stop copying and it is not copy protection. What it does well is make your name hard to miss and casual misuse more trouble than it is worth. Keep your originals and their metadata as your record of authorship.

Where to put it

• A corner, with some room. The least intrusive choice, and the easiest to crop away. Feeds and link previews often crop a photo to a square or to a narrower shape, so leave a margin and check that the mark survives a centre crop.
• Along an edge, near the subject. Bottom centre, or close to the part of the photo people care about, is harder to crop without losing the picture, and still keeps the face or the product clear.
• Tiled across the photo. The strongest deterrent and the most distracting. Suited to proofs and previews, where the client chooses photos and receives clean files afterwards, rather than to a portfolio.

Wherever it goes, keep it off faces and out of the area the eye goes to first. A mark that spoils the photo also spoils the impression of your work.

Visible watermark or copyright metadata?

They do different jobs. A visible watermark is seen by everyone but changes the picture. Copyright metadata (the EXIF and IPTC fields for creator and copyright) leaves the picture untouched and can be read by software, but most viewers never see it, and many websites and messaging apps remove it when a photo is uploaded. Many photographers use both: metadata in the files they deliver, a visible mark on what they post publicly. To see which fields your photos carry, open them in the EXIF viewer.

Sizing for social media and for client proofs

• Social media and portfolios. Small and quiet: a name or logo a few per cent of the photo width, at partial opacity, in a corner or along the bottom edge. Look at it at phone size, because that is how most people will see it. Resize for each platform first with the image resizer, then add the mark: it is sized as a share of the width, so it comes out the same.
• Client proofs. Larger and tiled, at low opacity, so the photo can still be judged but not used as it is. A lower-resolution copy adds to the protection.