The Easiest Way to Protect Your Photos With a Watermark

A watermark indicates ownership.

While a watermark is not a legal covenant in itself, it works incredibly well as a deterrent. That means, if someone is looking for images on the Internet that they want to steal or use illegitimately, they will be discouraged by watermarks. A watermark is a sign that says that a particular image is owned by someone, and hence, it might also be copyright protected.

Just to stay out of trouble, a person might choose not to steal your work. So, if you are a creator — a painter, photographer, or digital artist — who wants to maintain ownership over your creations, you must know how to protect your photos with a watermark.

The tools you must have to make watermarks for your photos

Watermarking is an old tradition involving a lot of hard work — molding, pressing, drying, and whatnot. Fear not, things have changed. Digital watermarking is super easy and extremely efficient if you know the right tools for it. The exact steps of putting watermarks on your photos digitally vary with different tools. This article will follow the process in Visual Watermark.

Creating a watermark online

To put watermarks on your photos online, you can use tools like Visual Watermark. All you need to do is open the online app through your browser and upload the whole batch of photos (up to 2000) that you want watermarked.

After that, you need to design the watermark by adding text, a logo, or an icon. The whole process consists of typing and drag and drop only.

You will have the option to choose from a variety of fonts, colors, and styles. You will also be able to edit the watermark’s position, opacity, size, etc.

Once you are done, you can simply download the results. Visual Watermark now offers a free trial with limited features, but full access requires a paid version.

Creating a watermark offline

There are downloadable applications available for creating watermarks offline. In this case, too, the experience and the processes vary from tool to tool.

For instance, the desktop application by Visual Watermark lets you process up to 50,000 photos at once and comes with 10 watermark templates to streamline the process of designing your personalized watermark.

Aside from the fonts in the application library, the desktop application also supports your own fonts and the fonts you may have gotten with Monotype or Adobe subscriptions.

It protects your watermarks against automated watermark removal tools and lets you add copyright and contact information to the image metadata.

Things to keep in mind while creating watermarks

• Visible but not intrusive

You want viewers to see the watermark and recognize the owner of an image but subtly. The watermark should cover essential parts of the image, but it should not create a major distraction.

• Placement is key

While you should not have the watermark as the centerpiece of the image, Ensure the watermark is placed strategically so it cannot be easily removed or cropped out without affecting the photo’s integrity.

• Be careful with the opacity

A watermark with high opacity may reduce the visual appeal of a photo. You have to find a balance. Also, make sure you optimize the opacity of the watermark based on the color palette of the content.

• It’s a branding opportunity

When a person sees the name of your brand on an image he likes or on the photo of a place he’d like to visit, chances are his brain will make a correlation between the brand and the place. This is a good way of building brand recognition.

Conclusion

A watermark does not grant copyright protection, but registering your work with the U.S. Copyright Office (or relevant authority) ensures legal ownership. Watermarks are more of a social engineering tactic to deter people from stealing your work. It allows you to avoid the hassle of getting into a legal battle.

Get your hands on the right tool and you’ll find that making watermarks is an absolute cakewalk. You can finally focus on more important aspects of selling art or building a brand.

Related: How to Remove Image Background in 5 Tools: A Step-by-Step Guide