Image Watermark Tool
Add custom text watermarks to protect your photos — position, size, and opacity control.
Drop an image here or click to browse
Supports JPG, PNG, WEBP
All watermarking happens in your browser. Your image is never uploaded.
A watermark is the simplest way to assert ownership of an image and discourage casual theft, and for photographers, designers, and anyone sharing work online it is a routine necessity. The goal is a genuine trade-off: visible enough to identify the source and deter unauthorized use, subtle enough not to ruin the image it is protecting. This tool overlays text or a logo onto your images with control over position, size, and opacity, entirely in your browser — which matters, because watermarking is something you do to unpublished work, and this tool never uploads a single pixel of it.
How the tool works
Upload your image and add a watermark — text or a logo — then adjust its position, size, and opacity until the balance is right. Corner placement is subtle; a centered, low-opacity tile across the whole image is harder to remove. The tool composites the watermark onto the image through the Canvas API and lets you download the result. Everything runs locally, so your photos and designs never leave your device, which is the whole point when the work is not yet public.
Placement strategies and their trade-offs
Corner, opaque:
✓ unobtrusive ✗ trivially cropped out
Centered, low opacity:
✓ hard to remove ✗ intrudes on the image
Tiled / repeated across image:
✓ removal-proof ✗ most intrusive
Opacity 30-50% is the usual visibility/subtlety balance.The core tension is that the easier a watermark is to ignore, the easier it is to remove. A small logo in the corner respects the image but can be cropped off in seconds. A faint mark across the center survives cropping but sits on top of your subject. A repeated tile is nearly impossible to remove cleanly but is the most intrusive of all. There is no perfect answer — you are choosing where to sit on the spectrum between protecting the image and preserving it, and the right point depends on how valuable and how theft-prone the image is.
What to know about watermarking
- 1A watermark deters casual theft, not determined thieves. Someone can crop, clone-stamp, or now AI-inpaint a watermark away with effort. The realistic goal is to make unauthorized use inconvenient enough that most people either ask permission or move on — not to make the image theft-proof, which no visible watermark can achieve.
- 2Corner watermarks are the most easily defeated. A logo tucked in a corner is the least intrusive choice, which is exactly why it is the easiest to crop out. If deterrence matters more than aesthetics for a particular image, a semi-transparent mark placed over the subject survives cropping in a way a corner mark never will.
- 3Keep a clean, unwatermarked master of every image. Watermarking is destructive to the copy you export, so always work from and retain the original. You will need the clean version for licensed sales, print, or a client who has paid for unmarked use — regenerating it from a watermarked copy is impossible.
- 4Match opacity to purpose: 30–50% is the usual balance. Too faint and the watermark neither identifies nor deters; too opaque and it dominates the image. Somewhere around a third to half opacity typically reads clearly as a mark while letting the image show through, though the exact value depends on the image's brightness and the watermark's color.
- 5Metadata is a quiet complement to a visible watermark. Embedding your copyright and contact information in the file's EXIF and IPTC metadata travels with the image invisibly, so even a cropped copy can carry your ownership claim. It is easily stripped, so it does not replace a visible mark, but as a second, unobtrusive layer it costs nothing to add.
Frequently asked questions
Does a watermark actually protect my image?
It deters casual misuse rather than truly protecting the image. A watermark makes unauthorized use inconvenient — most people will ask permission or find another image rather than edit yours — but a determined person can crop, clone out, or AI-remove any visible mark with effort. Think of it as a lock on a door: it stops the opportunistic, not the committed. For real protection you need licensing terms and, if it comes to it, legal recourse, not just a visual mark.
Where should I place the watermark?
It depends on how much you value deterrence versus aesthetics for that image. A corner watermark is subtle and respects the image but is trivially cropped out. A semi-transparent mark over the center or subject is harder to remove but intrudes on the composition. A repeated tile is nearly removal-proof but the most intrusive. Choose based on the image's value and theft risk — there is no single right answer, only a trade-off you are deciding deliberately.
What opacity should I use?
Around 30–50% is the usual sweet spot: opaque enough to read clearly as a watermark and deter use, transparent enough to let the image show through rather than dominating it. The exact value depends on the image — a faint mark can vanish on a busy or bright photo, while a strong one can overwhelm a simple one. Adjust until the mark is unmistakably present but the image is still the focus.
Will watermarking ruin my original image?
Only the exported copy carries the watermark; your original file is untouched as long as you keep it. This is why the essential practice is to always retain a clean, unwatermarked master and export watermarked copies for sharing. You will need the clean version for licensed sales, printing, or delivering to a paying client, and you cannot recover it from a watermarked copy, so never overwrite the original.
Is my image uploaded when I watermark it?
No. The watermarking runs entirely in your browser through the Canvas API, so your image is processed on your own device and never transmitted, logged, or stored. You can confirm this by disconnecting from the internet; the tool keeps working because no server is involved. This is especially important for watermarking, since you are typically protecting unpublished work that you would not want uploaded anywhere before you release it.