How to Add a Watermark to Photos: Text, Logo and Tiled
A good watermark keeps your name attached to a photo wherever it travels while staying quiet enough that people still enjoy the picture. This guide covers a corner credit, a text-and-logo mark and a faint tiled pattern, with settings that work and how to reuse them.
Pick the right kind of watermark
Decide first what the watermark is for: it sets the size, position and strength.
| Kind | What it looks like | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Corner credit | Small text such as “© Your Name” in a bottom corner, 60–70% opacity. | Portfolio and social posts where the photo should look clean and the mark is mainly a signature. |
| Text and logo | Your logo mark beside the name, in the same corner, at the same opacity. | Businesses and studios that want brand recognition, product photos, listings. |
| Tiled pattern | The name repeated diagonally across the whole frame at 20–35% opacity. | Proofs sent to clients before payment, stock previews, anything you expect to be copied. |
A corner mark is easy to crop off but barely affects the picture; a tiled mark is tedious to remove but always visible. Many photographers use a corner credit in public and a tiled version for client proofs.
Two sizing rules save trial and error: make corner text about 3–5% of the photo’s shorter side (30–40 px on a 1200×800 image), and leave a similar margin from the edges so the mark survives a slightly different crop.
The quick way: a text watermark in one page
If you only need a text credit on one photo, the Add text page does it without opening the editor. Choose your image, then press Watermark under Quick start. It places a single line of text in the bottom-right corner, right-aligned, in bold Inter at about 4.5% of the shorter side (36 px on a 1200×800 photo), white with a soft shadow and Opacity at 70%.
Type your own name in the Text box. You can then change Font, Size, Color and alignment, add an Outline or turn off the Shadow, and set Opacity from 10% to 100%. Drag the text to move it; pull its corner to resize. Download saves the full-size image in the original format.
The page handles text only, one image at a time. For a logo, a tiled pattern or a watermark that stays editable, use the editor.
Text and logo watermark in the editor
In the editor, text and logo each sit on their own layer above the photo, so you can move, fade or delete the watermark later without touching the photo. The logo should be a PNG with a transparent background; a logo on a white box will show the box.
- Open the photo. Choose File › Open… (Ctrl+O, or Cmd+O on a Mac) and pick the image.
- Type the text. Press T for the Text tool, click near the corner where the mark should go, and type. For the © sign, use Alt+0169 on Windows or Option+G on a Mac.
- Style the text. In the Character panel choose a plain, bold font, set the color to white and the size to roughly 3–5% of the shorter side. The font picker can also upload a brand font (woff2, woff, ttf or otf).
- Add the logo. Choose File › Place… and pick the logo PNG. It lands in the middle of the photo at its own pixel size, as a smart object, so you can scale it down and back up later without it going soft.
- Size and position the logo. Press Ctrl+Alt+T (Cmd+Option+T) for Edit › Free Transform. The options bar shows X, Y, W, H and Angle. Type the same percentage into W and H to keep its proportions, set X and Y or drag it next to the text, then press Enter to commit or Esc to cancel.
- Lower the opacity. Select each watermark layer and set Opacity in the Layers panel to about 60–70%. To move text and logo together afterwards, Shift+click both rows in the Layers panel and drag with the Move tool (V).
- Add a soft shadow. With the text layer active, choose Layer › Layer Style › Drop Shadow…. The defaults (Blend Mode Multiply, Opacity 50, Size 8, Distance 6, Angle 135) are already a good start for small text; click OK. The shadow keeps white text readable where it crosses a bright patch of sky.
- Check and export. Look at the result at 100% (View › Actual Pixels, Ctrl+Alt+0) and zoomed out, since most people will see it small. Save File › Save As Project (.psy) to keep every layer editable, and make the copy to share with File › Export As › JPG.
For a crisper edge, use Layer › Layer Style › Stroke… (Position, Color, Width) instead: a 1–2 px dark stroke helps thin light text over a busy background.
A tiled, repeating watermark
A tiled watermark is one small tile, your name rotated on a transparent background, repeated across the photo: make the tile, save it as a pattern, fill a layer with it.
- Make a transparent tile. Choose File › New…, enter a Width and Height such as 360×240, set Background to Transparent, and click Create. The tile size sets how far apart the repeats are.
- Type and rotate the name. Add white text at around 24 px. Press Ctrl+Alt+T, type an Angle such as −25, and press Enter. Then drag it so the whole line sits inside the tile with clear space on every side; anything touching an edge is cut off in every repeat.
- Define the pattern. Choose Edit › Define Pattern…, give it a name in the Pattern Name box, and click OK. The pattern is captured from everything visible in the document, or from the selection if you made one. Tiles larger than 512 px on a side are scaled down.
- Fill a layer with it. Open the photo and choose Layer › New Fill Layer › Pattern. A Pattern Fill layer covers the image, and the Properties panel shows the Pattern menu and a Scale slider (1–1000%) to make the repeats larger or smaller.
- Fade it right down. Set the fill layer’s Opacity to 20–35% (30% in our example).
Because the fill is its own layer, you can add a layer mask and paint black with a soft brush to clear the watermark off a face or a product label.
Reuse the same watermark on every photo
Reusing one watermark keeps a set of photos consistent. Keep it in one of three forms:
- As a pattern. Defined patterns are kept in this browser and listed in the Pattern menu of a Pattern Fill layer’s Properties. After a page reload, though, the New Fill Layer › Pattern command needs an active pattern again, so keep the tile as a .psy too: reopening it and choosing Define Pattern… takes seconds.
- As a transparent PNG. Build the corner mark (logo plus text) in its own document with a transparent background and use File › Export As › PNG. PNG keeps the transparency; JPG has no transparency, so it would put the mark on a white box. On the next photo, File › Place… brings it in as one layer.
- As a project. File › Save As Project (.psy) keeps the text editable, which matters when the year in “© 2026” changes or a client wants a different name.
Make the PNG a little larger than you need (say 600 px wide for 2,000 px photos): placed images are smart objects, and scaling down stays sharp while scaling up does not.
Watermarking many photos: what to expect
Photoyam has no one-click batch watermark. The Window › Actions panel can replay recorded steps on many files with Batch…, but it records commands such as filters, adjustments, rotations and flips. Adding text or placing an image is not recorded, so a recorded watermark would play back as nothing.
For a handful of images, the PNG route above is quick: open a photo, Place… the watermark, Ctrl+Alt+T to size it, export, repeat. Doing it per image also lets you move the mark off the subject on each one. For hundreds of photos at a time, a desktop batch tool is the better fit.
Troubleshooting
My logo has a white box around it
The logo file has a solid background. Use a PNG exported with transparency, or remove the background first with the background remover and then place the result.
The tiled text is cut off at regular intervals
The text touches the edge of the tile, so each repeat clips it. Go back to the tile document, move or shrink the text so there is empty space on every side, and define the pattern again. Then pick the new pattern in the fill layer’s Pattern menu.
Layer › New Fill Layer › Pattern is greyed out
It needs an active pattern, and none is active after a page reload. Define one with Edit › Define Pattern…; the newest pattern becomes the active one automatically.
Common mistakes
- Making it too big. If you notice the mark before the subject, halve its size.
- Flattening the working file. Export a JPG to share, but keep the layered .psy. Removing a watermark from a flattened file means retouching.
Try it in Photoyam
A text watermark in seconds on the Add text page, or the editor for logos and tiled patterns. It all runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
FAQ
Where should a watermark go on a photo?
For a credit mark, a bottom corner with a margin of about 3 to 4 percent of the image width is the usual choice, because it stays readable without covering the subject. If the main worry is someone cropping it off, place it closer to the subject or use a faint tiled watermark across the whole image instead.
What opacity should a watermark have?
Around 60 to 70 percent works for a small corner mark with a soft shadow. A tiled watermark that covers the whole photo should be much fainter, roughly 20 to 35 percent, or it will dominate the image.
Can Photoyam watermark many photos at once?
Not automatically. The Batch command in the Actions panel replays recorded steps such as filters, adjustments, rotations and flips, but adding text or placing a logo is not a step it can record. The fastest manual route is to keep your watermark as a transparent PNG and use File > Place on each photo, or use the Add text page, which opens one image at a time.
Does a watermark stop people from stealing my photos?
It discourages casual reuse and keeps your name attached when a photo is shared, but it is not a lock. A small corner mark can be cropped out and any watermark can be retouched away with enough effort. A large, faint, tiled watermark is the hardest to remove, at the cost of a less clean image.