💧 Watermark Tool

The tool draws your photo onto a canvas at its native pixel dimensions, then draws the watermark on top of it. Because both are composited in one canvas, the exported file is genuinely flattened rather than layered.

Size is expressed as a percentage of image width rather than in pixels, and that choice matters. A text size of five per cent produces a font size equal to five per cent of the photo's width, so the same setting yields a proportionally identical mark on a small web image and on a full resolution camera file. Text size runs from 1 to 20 per cent; logo size runs from 5 to 80 per cent.

Position is resolved from a nine cell grid. The tool calculates the centre point of the watermark for the anchor you pick, offsetting corner and edge anchors inward by the margin so the mark never touches the frame. Rotation is applied around that centre point, so turning a mark does not move it off its anchor. Opacity sets the drawing alpha, from 10 to 100 per cent. When tiling is on, the position picker is hidden.

Imagine a landscape photo measuring 4000 by 3000 pixels. You type a copyright line as the watermark text and leave the size at five per cent. Five per cent of 4000 is 200, so the text is drawn at a 200 pixel font size, which is legible but not dominant on a frame of that scale.

You set opacity to 70 per cent, which keeps the photo visible through the lettering, and anchor the mark bottom right, so its centre sits in from the right edge and up from the bottom by half the text dimensions plus the margin. Adding a rotation of minus 30 degrees tips the line upward while keeping it pinned to that bottom right anchor.

Now take the same photo resized to 1200 pixels wide for a blog. Five per cent gives a 60 pixel font, occupying the same share of the frame as the 200 pixel version did. That proportional behaviour is why percentages beat eyeballing a pixel size.

For a logo watermark at 20 per cent on the 4000 pixel image, the logo is drawn 800 pixels wide, with its height scaled to keep its aspect ratio.

A watermark anchored in one corner is easy to crop away. If deterrence matters more than presentation, turn on tiling so the mark repeats across the frame, or place it centrally over the subject, where removing it also removes the part of the picture anyone would want. Rotation helps too, because an angled mark cuts across more content than a horizontal one.

Opacity is a balance. Below about 30 per cent a mark can vanish into bright areas, and above about 80 per cent it starts competing with the photograph. The shadow toggle is the better answer to a busy background, because it adds contrast without raising opacity.

On output format, choose PNG when your logo has transparency or the image contains flat colour and sharp edges, and JPEG when the photo is continuous tone and file size matters, adjusting the quality setting to taste. Remember that the on-screen preview is rendered at reduced resolution for responsiveness, so fine detail in the mark will look sharper in the downloaded file than in the preview. A watermark is a deterrent, not copyright protection in itself.