Image Watermark Tool

About this tool

Sharing images before they are final means losing control of them. A watermark is a visible ownership claim — your name, a copyright notice, or DRAFT stamped across an unreleased design. This tool adds text watermarks without installing software or using a trial-limited app. Type any string, choose font size, colour, and opacity, then pick one of nine canvas anchor positions or enable diagonal tile mode that repeats across the whole image. Tiled diagonal marks are far harder to crop or clone-stamp out than a single corner mark. A white text stroke keeps the watermark readable across both dark and light regions without knowing the dominant colour in advance. Output retains original pixel dimensions at full quality. Your photos and watermark text never leave your browser tab — Canvas composites everything locally.

Why use it

• Custom Text Watermark: Type any string as the watermark: your name, a copyright symbol with year, 'DRAFT', 'CONFIDENTIAL', or 'Not For Print'. The text renders in the colour, size, and font weight you choose — making the watermark part of your visual identity rather than an anonymous overlay.

• Opacity Slider 0-100%: Set opacity from 10% (barely visible brand attribution that doesn't distract) to 100% (fully opaque text blocking critical image areas). The sweet spot for most sharing scenarios is 20-35% — visible enough to deter casual reuse while leaving the image usable for review and approval.

• 9-Position Picker: Choose from nine anchor positions: top-left, top-centre, top-right, middle-left, centre, middle-right, bottom-left, bottom-centre, and bottom-right — covering every common placement scenario. Use bottom-right for subtle photography attribution, centre for prominent draft notices, and top-left for agency watermarks on client design deliverables.

• Diagonal Repeat (Tile) Mode: In tile mode, the watermark repeats diagonally across the entire image canvas at regular intervals. This pattern is significantly harder to remove than a single corner watermark — removing it requires cloning or in-painting every repeated instance, which is time-consuming and usually produces visible artefacts.

• Font Size and Colour Control: Set font size from 12 to 120px and choose any text colour. Add a white outline stroke (1-2px) to ensure the watermark text remains readable over both bright highlights and dark shadows in the same image — particularly important for photography with high dynamic range or complex backgrounds.

• Browser-Local Render: The Canvas API composites the watermark text over the image entirely within your browser tab. Your photos and the watermark text string are never uploaded to any server. This is important when the image being watermarked is an unreleased product photo, a confidential design review, or a client deliverable under NDA.

How to use

1. Upload the image you want to watermark — PNG, JPEG, or WebP files are accepted.
2. Type the watermark text in the input field: your name, copyright notice, 'DRAFT', or any string you want.
3. Choose font size, text colour, and an optional white outline stroke to keep the text readable on both light and dark image areas.
4. Set opacity using the slider — 20-30% for subtle branding, 60-80% for a clear 'do not use' deterrent.
5. Pick one of the nine anchor positions (top-left to bottom-right) for a single mark, or enable diagonal tile mode to cover the entire canvas.
6. Download the watermarked image — it retains the original pixel dimensions and file format.

When it helps

• Sharing draft design comps with a client for review — stamping DRAFT across the canvas discourages premature use before final approval.
• Distributing personal photography for licensing enquiries — a name and copyright mark at low opacity maintains attribution without obscuring the work.
• Sending preview images for e-commerce product listings that have not yet gone live — prevents premature social sharing.
• Marking confidential internal screenshots or reports before including them in a presentation or document shared externally.
• Preparing 'sample' images for a digital download product — tile watermarking lets customers evaluate the content without receiving the final file.
• Adding a subtle brand mark to social media images before posting, ensuring attribution when images are reshared or screenshotted.

Examples

Tips

• Tiled diagonal watermarks are far harder to remove than single-corner marks — use tile mode when the deterrent effect matters, such as sample images for digital products or confidential client deliverables.
• 20-30% opacity is the sweet spot for most use cases — visible enough to attribute ownership and deter casual reuse, subtle enough not to obscure the image for legitimate review purposes.
• Add a 1-2px white text outline so the watermark stays readable across both bright highlights and dark shadows in the same photo — particularly important for landscape and product photography.
• Watermarks deter theft but don't prevent it — for legal protection, formally register copyright and document the original creation date. The watermark is evidence of ownership, not enforcement.
• Test how the watermark looks at the final display size, not just at full resolution — at small sizes like Twitter card thumbnails, low-opacity watermarks can become invisible and provide no deterrent.

Frequently Asked Questions

Glossary

Watermark

A visible overlay added to an image to indicate ownership, copyright, or draft status. Text watermarks use semi-transparent text composited over the image. Watermarks are a deterrent against unauthorised use and a tool for attribution, but do not prevent technically capable actors from removing them.

Opacity / alpha

A value from 0 (fully transparent) to 1 (fully opaque) controlling how much of the underlying image shows through the watermark layer. Lower opacity produces a subtle, partially see-through watermark; higher opacity produces a bold, nearly solid overlay. Expressed as a percentage in the tool's slider (0-100%).

Tile pattern

A repeating arrangement of the watermark text that covers the entire image canvas in a diagonal grid. Tiling is the standard approach for protecting sample images and confidential documents because removing a tiled watermark requires separately in-painting every instance, which is impractical at high tile density.

Anchor position

The point on the image canvas where the watermark is attached — one of nine standard positions: three rows (top, middle, bottom) by three columns (left, centre, right). The watermark's own corner or centre aligns to the anchor point, with an optional margin from the edge.

Stroke (text outline)

A thin border drawn around each character in the watermark text, typically white or black. A stroke ensures the text remains legible over any background — without it, light-coloured text disappears on bright image areas and dark-coloured text disappears on dark areas of the same photo.

Diagonal repeat

A watermark rendering mode where the text is rotated at an angle (typically 30-45 degrees) and repeated across the canvas in both directions to create a full-coverage tile pattern. Diagonal repeat is preferred over horizontal repeat because diagonal text is harder to remove by row-selecting or horizontally cropping the image.