How to watermark photos so it can't be cropped

To keep a watermark from being cropped out, don't park it in a corner: tile it across the whole photo at an angle and a medium opacity, or put it over the main subject. You can try that right now on your own pictures with the image watermark tool, which draws the mark in your browser so your photos never get uploaded anywhere.

Where should a watermark go so it can't be cropped?

In the center, or repeated across the entire image. A corner is the worst spot: one crop removes it and leaves no trace. The tool gives you a nine-position grid and a tiled mode, and each choice has a cost:

• Corner or edge. Subtle and unobtrusive, but a crop deletes it. Fine if you only want credit, not if you're worried about reuse. The tool keeps a fixed 20-pixel margin from the edge.
• Center. Whoever wants it gone has to rebuild the area it covers, which is far more work than cropping. The price is that it gets in the way of the picture, so lower the opacity.
• Tiled (the "Tiled pattern" checkbox). The mark repeats in rows across the photo, so any reasonable crop still contains at least one copy. Turning it on makes the position grid irrelevant.

In tiled mode, spacing follows size: copies sit one and a half text-widths apart horizontally, and rows are three letter-heights apart. A smaller size gives you more copies that are harder to dodge; a huge one leaves few copies and gaps a crop can slip through.

Opacity, size and angle: a starting recipe

For an ordinary photo, try tiled text at 6-8% size, 25-35% opacity and a rotation of around -30°. Those are starting points based on how the controls work, not a standard, so adjust to your image.

• Size. The slider runs from 5% to 50%. For text it's a percentage of the photo's shorter side; for a logo, of its width. That's why one setting works across photos of different dimensions.
• Opacity. From 5% to 100% (default 50%). It should be seen without dominating: if the mark covers detail that matters, turn it down.
• Rotation. From -90° to 90°. A tilted mark is harder to crop out cleanly or patch over, and it disrupts the composition less than a flat horizontal banner.
• Color. Text defaults to white, which vanishes against a bright sky. Use white on dark photos and black or a dark shade on light ones. Fonts are limited to sans-serif, serif and monospace.

One limitation to know about: there's no preview before you apply. You see the result afterward, and changing a setting means loading the photos again. Run one or two test photos before committing the batch.

Text or a transparent PNG logo: which one?

Use text for a quick signature (say © Your Name 2026 or your Instagram handle) and a logo when you want photos tied to your brand, such as product shots for a shop listing. The logo goes in the "Image" tab and keeps its proportions.

It accepts PNG or JPG up to 5 MB, but the right file is a PNG with a transparent background. A JPG has no transparency, so the logo will sit inside a white rectangle. The opacity you pick stacks on top of the PNG's own transparency, and the logo can't be recolored: if your photos vary a lot, keep two versions, one light and one dark. If you need to convert the logo first, the image converter can do it.

How do you watermark many photos at once?

Drop in up to 20 images (50 MB max each), configure the mark once, and the same settings apply to all of them.

1. Drop the photos into the upload area or add them from your camera roll.
2. Pick text or image, then set position or tiled pattern, size, opacity and rotation.
3. Click "Apply watermark" and wait for each photo to show as done.
4. Download them one by one or, if you processed more than one, all together with "Download ZIP".

Two practical details. PNG and WebP files keep their format and everything else comes out as a high-quality JPEG with -watermark added to the name, so your originals stay untouched. And because the image is re-exported, metadata normally gets dropped, GPS location included. Don't assume: check the output in the EXIF viewer. If the size of the batch is a concern, run the files through the image compressor afterward; our guide to compressing images without losing quality covers how far to go.

Does a watermark really protect your photos?

Only partly: it discourages casual reuse and records who made the image, but it won't stop someone with the tools and the patience to remove it. Tiling and center placement raise the effort required without ever becoming a lock. The full discussion is in do watermarks actually protect your work?, and if you're wondering what else your photo carries besides pixels, read what your photos reveal about you.

Frequently asked questions

Related tools

• Add watermark to image: text or logo, tiling and batches.
• View and remove EXIF metadata: check what data your photo carries.
• Compress image: shrink the batch once it's marked.
• Add watermark to PDF: the same idea, for documents.