How to Add a Watermark to an Image Online

To add a watermark to an image, drop your photo into the Watermark Image tool, type your text, and pick a position — Bottom right, Bottom left, Top right, Top left, Center, or Tiled across the whole photo. Adjust size, opacity and color, then download. The watermark is drawn in your browser; the photo is never uploaded anywhere.

What this tool actually does

Watermark Image stamps a line of text onto a copy of your photo. The defaults are text © Your Name, Position set to Bottom right, Size at 4%, Opacity at 60%, and Color white.

Size isn't a pixel value — it's a percentage (1–20%) of the image's own width, so the watermark scales with the photo: a 4% watermark on a 1,200px-wide image comes out as 48px-tall text, while the same 4% on a 3,000px image comes out at 120px. There's an 8px floor so the text never gets too small to read on tiny images. The text is drawn in a semibold sans-serif (Helvetica Neue, falling back to Helvetica, Arial or your system default) with a soft dark drop shadow behind it, which is what keeps white text legible over both light and dark parts of a photo without you having to pick a different color for every image.

Position places the text in one of four corners, dead center, or tiled diagonally across the entire image in a repeating pattern — the classic stock-photo look that's much harder to crop out than a single corner mark.

How to watermark an image with Toolbench

1. Open Watermark Image.
2. Drop in a photo, paste one from your clipboard, or click to browse. PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF and SVG all work.
3. Type your watermark into Text — a name, a copyright line, a URL, whatever you want stamped on.
4. Pick a Position: Bottom right (the default), Bottom left, Top right, Top left, Center, or Tiled.
5. Drag Size (1–20%) to scale the text relative to the image's width, and Opacity (5–100%) to make it subtler or bolder.
6. Set Color with the color picker — white works well on most photos thanks to the built-in shadow, but switch to black or your brand color if you prefer.
7. Choose a Format, or leave it as "Same as original."
8. Check the preview against the original side by side, then ↓ Download — or sign in first to ＋ Save to gallery.

Worked example

Take a 1,200 × 800px photo and leave every setting at its default (© Your Name, Bottom right, Size 4%, Opacity 60%, white).

• Font size: 1,200 × 4 ÷ 100 = 48px tall text.
• Margin from the edges: 80% of that font size, so 48 × 0.8 ≈ 38px in from both the right and bottom edges, no matter how long the text is.
• Vertical placement: the text's vertical center lands at 800 − 38 − 24 = 738px from the top — about 62px up from the bottom edge, which is the 38px margin plus half the 48px text height.

Switch Position to Top left with the same settings and the math mirrors: the text sits about 38px in from the left edge and its center lands around 62px down from the top.

Switch Position to Tiled and the tool instead rotates the whole pattern −30° and repeats your text in offset rows spaced four font-heights apart vertically (48 × 4 = 192px at this size) — alternating rows are shifted sideways by half that row's spacing, so the copies brick-pattern across the photo diagonally instead of lining up in a grid.

Position reference

Position	Where it lands	Good for
Bottom right (default)	Inset from the bottom-right corner	Photography credits, social media exports
Bottom left	Inset from the bottom-left corner	Alternative corner if the subject is in the way
Top right	Inset from the top-right corner	Logos or marks that shouldn't overlap a caption area below
Top left	Inset from the top-left corner	Same, mirrored
Center	Dead center of the image	Draft stamps, "SAMPLE" or "DO NOT USE" overlays
Tiled	Repeating diagonal pattern across the whole image	Proofs and stock-style previews that are hard to crop out

Tips and common mistakes

• A corner position can get crowded on busy photos. If the bottom-right corner already has something important in it, try a different corner or Center instead of fighting the composition.
• Tiled watermarks space themselves based on your text length. A short mark like © Acme repeats tighter than a longer line like © Acme Co. 2026 — shorten the text if the tiles feel too sparse.
• JPG output has no transparency, but that doesn't matter here since the watermark is painted directly onto the photo's own pixels, not a separate transparent layer.
• White text can still vanish on a very bright sky or white background even with the built-in shadow. Switch Color to black or a dark shade for light photos.
• Size is relative to image width, not a fixed point size. If you batch different photos at different resolutions, the same % setting keeps the watermark proportionally consistent instead of comically large or tiny.

Related tools

• Compress Image — shrink the watermarked file for faster page loads.
• Convert Image Format — switch the output between PNG, JPG and WebP.
• Resize Image — scale to an exact pixel width or height before or after watermarking.
• Social Media Resizer — fit the watermarked image to Open Graph, Instagram, X or YouTube dimensions.

Frequently asked questions

Is my photo uploaded anywhere when I add a watermark?

No. The watermark is drawn onto your image inside your own browser. The only way a copy leaves your device is if you sign in and choose to save the result to your Gallery.

Can I use my own logo instead of text?

No, Watermark Image only stamps text — there's no image or logo upload for the watermark itself. For a text-based copyright line, name or URL, this tool works directly; for a logo mark, you'd need to composite it with separate image-editing software.

Why is my watermark a different size on every photo?

Size is set as a percentage of the image's own width (1–20%, 4% by default), not a fixed pixel size, so the same percentage scales up on a large photo and down on a small one. This keeps the watermark proportionally consistent across photos of different resolutions.

What does the Tiled position actually do?

It repeats your watermark text across the entire image in offset, brick-like rows, rotated −30°, instead of placing one copy in a corner or the center. It's the pattern typically used on stock photo previews because it's much harder to crop out than a single corner mark.

Does the watermark work on transparent PNGs?

Yes — the text is painted directly onto the image at the position and opacity you choose, over whatever is there, including transparent areas. If you then export as JPG, any remaining transparency in the rest of the image gets filled with white, since JPG doesn't support transparency.