Put a watermark on a photo

On the main stage a mark arrives at full strength, because most things you place there are meant to be looked at. A watermark is meant to be seen through, so here it lands at 35% and the first panel on the Place tab is Tile — the switch that turns one mark into a grid across the photo.

Tiling is the part of a watermark that survives a crop. A single mark in a corner is one selection box away from gone; a grid of faint marks crosses the subject wherever someone crops. The gaps are shares of the mark's own size, so the pattern keeps its rhythm on a phone photo and on a 6000-pixel scan.

1. 1Open the photo. Drop it, paste it or choose it. It is read in this tab and goes nowhere else.
2. 2Add the mark. A transparent PNG, an SVG or a few words. It lands in the bottom-right corner at 35%.
3. 3Decide: corner or tiled. Leave Tile off for a credit in the corner. Switch it on for a grid that covers the photo, then set the gaps, the grid's angle and the brick offset.
4. 4Check the strength. Pull the opacity until the mark is visible on the lightest and darkest parts of the photo without fighting the subject — usually between 20% and 45%.
5. 5Save. PNG, JPG or WebP at full size, or a smaller long edge. The marks are drawn again at the saved size.

Opens

Bottom right, 18% of the long edge, 35% opacity, inside a 3% margin.

Tile

Gap across and gap down 0–300% of the mark, grid angle −90° to 90°, brick offset on or off.

Purpose label

“Copy for … — date” tiled diagonally at 35%, for a document photo.

Marks

PNG, JPG, WebP, SVG, HEIC where the browser opens it, or a text layer.

Saving

PNG, JPG or WebP, full size or a chosen long edge, with an optional KB limit.

• A watermark does not stop copying. It makes reuse visibly damaged and the source obvious; it can still be painted out by someone determined.
• The crop check is switched off while a mark is tiled — a tiled mark is everywhere a crop could go.
• Six hundred copies is the most one tiled layer draws; a tiny mark with no gap stops there.

Corner mark or tiled?

A corner mark is a credit: it says whose the picture is and goes in one crop. Tiled marks are friction: they cross the subject wherever the picture is cut, which is what you want when the worry is reuse rather than attribution. Both are the same layer here; Tile is one switch.

What opacity is visible but not ugly?

Usually 20–45%. Check it over the lightest and the darkest parts of the photo: a white mark disappears over sky and a black one over shadow, so a mark with an outline (Finish tab) or a soft shadow reads on both at a lower opacity.

Does a watermark stop copying?

No. Nothing applied to the pixels of a picture stops someone copying it. A tiled mark makes a copy obviously someone else's and costly to clean; that is deterrence, not prevention.

What is the purpose label for?

For a photo of a document you have to share — a line such as “Copy for bank KYC — 24-10-2026” tiled across it, so the copy records what it was handed over for. It is not a security feature and does not stop reuse; where a masked document is accepted, that is safer to share.

Does my photo or my logo get uploaded?

No. Both are opened, drawn together and saved by code running in this tab. There is no server that receives them.

• Put one logo on many photosA folder of photos, one mark, one rule stated as shares of each frame, every photo checked, one ZIP.
• Add a logo to a photoOpens small, in the corner, inside the margin a crop is least likely to take.
• Overlay or watermarkA mark you want read against a mark meant to be ignored, and why the tools differ.
• Put text on a photoA text layer is on the photo when it opens: words, face, size and a backing that keeps them readable.