Watermark Image
Free image watermark tool. Add text across a photo at any size, angle, colour or opacity — including a tiled pattern — with a live preview and no upload.
Click to choose a file or drag & drop here
PNG, JPG or WebP · watermarked on your device, never uploaded
Photographers, designers and small sellers all hit the same problem: the moment an image is online it can be saved, cropped and reposted by anyone. A watermark does not make that impossible, but it makes casual theft obvious and it keeps your name attached to work as it travels.
This tool draws text across your image at any size, angle, colour and opacity, including a tiled pattern that covers the whole frame. The preview is the real thing at full resolution — what you see is exactly what downloads, and the photo never leaves your device.
How to use the Watermark Image
Open your photo
Drag in a PNG, JPG or WebP. The original resolution is kept — a 6000-pixel camera file comes back at 6000 pixels.
Type your mark
A name, a handle, a domain, or © and the year. Short marks read better at small sizes.
Position it
Any corner, the centre, or tiled diagonally across the whole image. Tiled is the hardest to crop out.
Tune size, opacity and colour
Size is a percentage of the shorter edge, so the same settings look right on a portrait phone photo and a wide landscape shot.
Download
JPEGs are saved as JPEG, everything else as PNG so transparency is preserved.
Choosing a watermark that actually works
A watermark has two jobs that pull against each other: it has to be hard to remove, and it has to not ruin the picture. Push too far towards the first and nobody wants to look at the image; push too far towards the second and a ten-second crop defeats it.
The usual compromise is a mark at 30–50% opacity, sized around 4–6% of the shorter edge, placed in a corner. For work you expect people to try to steal — pre-purchase proofs, portfolio pieces, stock samples — tiling across the centre is far more effective, because there is no crop that removes it and no clean background to clone over.
- Corner, low opacity — for finished work you are happy to have shared, where the mark is attribution rather than protection.
- Centre, medium opacity — for proofs sent to a client before payment.
- Tiled diagonal — for anything you genuinely do not want reused, such as stock samples or event photos before purchase.
White or black text?
White text with a soft shadow reads on most photographs, which is why it is the default here. On a bright sky, a beach or a snow scene it disappears, and black or a dark grey works far better.
Every mark drawn by this tool carries a subtle drop shadow, which is what keeps light text legible over a light area without needing full opacity. If your image is genuinely mixed — dark on one side, bright on the other — tiling solves it, because some copies of the text will always land somewhere readable.
What a watermark does and does not protect
A visible watermark deters casual reuse and makes stolen copies traceable back to you. It does not stop a determined person: modern editing tools can remove a corner mark in seconds, and inpainting can do a passable job even on a tiled one.
It also has no legal force by itself. Copyright in a photograph exists from the moment you take it, watermark or not. What the mark does is remove the "I did not know who it belonged to" defence, and make an infringement visible to anyone else who sees the image.
Resolution and file format
Because the mark is drawn at the image's own resolution rather than on a scaled preview, it stays sharp when the picture is viewed full size or printed. Sizing by percentage rather than in pixels is what makes one setting work across a whole shoot of mixed orientations.
JPEGs come back as JPEG at high quality, which keeps file sizes reasonable for the web. Anything with transparency comes back as PNG so the transparent areas survive. If you need the result smaller for a website, run it through the image compressor afterwards.
Frequently asked questions
Is this watermark tool really free?
Yes — free, unlimited, no signup and no watermark of our own added to your image. The only mark on the output is the one you typed.
Are my photos uploaded anywhere?
No. The image is drawn onto a canvas inside your browser and saved straight back to your device. Nothing is transmitted, which matters for client proofs and unpublished work.
Will it reduce my image quality?
The watermark is drawn at full resolution, so nothing is scaled down. JPEG output is re-encoded at high quality; PNG output is lossless.
Can I add a logo image instead of text?
Not yet — this tool is text only. For a logo, place it in an image editor, or use text plus a distinctive font as an interim measure.
Which watermark position is hardest to remove?
Tiled across the whole image. A corner mark can be cropped away in one action; a tiled pattern covers the subject itself, so removing it means reconstructing the picture.
Can I watermark several photos at once?
Not in a single pass — images are handled one at a time so you can check each result. Settings stay put between images, so a batch is quick.
100% private. Files are processed on your device and never uploaded.
Instant results. No upload queue. Processing time depends on your device.
Free forever. No signup, no watermark, no paid tier.
Works everywhere. Use a modern browser on your phone or computer.
Related tools
Watermark Image is one of all the free tools on ToolNest. No account or subscription needed — anywhere in the world.