The short answer
Use the watermarking tool: upload, type the watermark text, choose tiled or corner placement, set the opacity, export. Three parameters have a clear recommended range. <strong>For anti-reuse, tile</strong>: diagonal repeats across the whole frame mean cropping one corner still leaves the rest. <strong>For presentation, pick a corner</strong>: one mark in the bottom right looks clean. <strong>For opacity, land between 15% and 30%</strong>: below 10% it is effectively invisible, above 40% it visibly degrades the picture. And accept the premise: a watermark stops casual lifting, not a determined editor. Its job is to signal the source and leave a traceable clue — registration and platform complaints are what actually enforce rights.
Tiled or corner: one resists cropping, one looks good
The two layouts serve two intents, with no better or worse. <strong>Tiled</strong> repeats the mark across the whole image, usually with a -30° to -45° rotation. Its advantage is crop resistance: crop the bottom left and the top right still has one; crop all four corners and the middle still does. It is the only layout that works for anti-reuse. The cost is that a texture covers the image and presentation suffers. <strong>Corner placement</strong> puts a single mark in a chosen spot (bottom right or bottom centre), which looks clean and suits portfolios, social posts and anything published formally. Its crop resistance is close to zero — a centred mark vanishes on the first crop, a diagonal one not far behind. So the test is simple: if you worry the image will be passed off as someone else's work, tile it. If you only want to credit the source, use a corner. Different images on the same site can use different layouts.
Opacity: 15%–30% is the useful band
Opacity is the core dial and the easiest one to overshoot. 100% is solid, higher numbers are fainter, and near zero is effectively invisible. From actual use: <strong>15%–20%</strong> is the anti-reuse floor — with diagonal tiling the texture is clearly visible without competing with the subject; <strong>25%–30%</strong> is the balance point for most cases; <strong>above 40%</strong> the image looks visibly dirtied, especially on light backgrounds; <strong>below 10%</strong> is the same as not having one, since it disappears on screen and on paper alike. Two companions matter too. <strong>Font size</strong> sets how much of the frame the mark occupies — too small and even a good opacity will not hold, so for diagonal tiling aim for roughly 1/12 to 1/8 of the image height. <strong>Rotation</strong> lets a diagonal mark cover more area while intruding less on the subject; ±30 to ±45 degrees is the usual range. When you are done, look at it as a thumbnail: readable on a phone but not shouting means you are there.
What to write: preserve the source, not just the name
Most people write a name or a logo, and neither is enough if you ever need to prove anything. The more useful pattern embeds the source: <strong>site or platform name + your identifier</strong> (handle, account name or brand). Something like "Tushuo Lab · shot by Alex" does far more work than a bare name, because a reader who sees the stolen copy can find you from it — and that moment is the only time a watermark does anything at all. Keep URLs short; a long parameterised link crowds the diagonal tiling and becomes unreadable. If the work appears on several platforms, name them, so readers know where to look. Two practical notes: check that the mark is still legible <em>at thumbnail size</em>, and do not worry about exposing contact details — the works worth protecting are not kept safe by being hard to find.
Export as PNG or JPG: decide by use
The format affects both the watermark and what you can do with the result. <strong>PNG</strong> keeps the semi-transparent gradient intact with no compression loss, so edges are cleanest — right for a master copy you archive, and for opacity below about 20%, where JPG's lossy compression can blur or eat a faint mark. Downside: large files. <strong>JPG</strong> is far smaller and better for social platforms, email and anywhere with an upload size cap. The trade-off is that semi-transparent areas need a background colour when converted to JPG, so pick one matching the original or you will see a block of mismatched tone. The rule of thumb: <strong>PNG to archive, JPG to publish</strong>. Exporting both is the lazy answer — keep the PNG as the record, send the JPG.
Two things to do after watermarking
One, <strong>compress before publishing</strong>: if the watermarked file still needs to be smaller, run it through the image compressor and push it to a target size. A light watermark may fade slightly after compression, but an image crushed too far does not spread either, so it is a balance. The order can be either way, though if you are working with very low opacity, watermark first and compress gently afterwards so the mark is not destroyed before it goes out. Two, <strong>decide in advance what "stolen" means in practice</strong>: a watermark's only function is to leave you a clue where the copy appears. The first step on discovery is not to argue but to collect evidence — screenshots of the page, the publication time, the link. With the watermark plus that record, a platform complaint or a legal route has something to stand on. A watermark is prevention plus evidence, not a fix.
想马上动手：用 图片加水印 防盗，裁剪去边角用 图片裁剪，想改完尺寸用 图片改尺寸，发出去前压到目标大小用 图片压缩，把多张图拼成对比图用 图片合并。Try it now: protect the image with image watermarking, trim the edges with image cropping, resize with the image resizer, and shrink the file via image compression before you publish.
FAQ
Can someone just crop the watermark out?
Yes — a watermark is a mark, not a lock. So the layout decides crop resistance. <strong>Tiled with a diagonal angle</strong> means cropping any single corner still leaves more than half the marks on screen, and cropping cannot remove them all; <strong>corner placement</strong> leaves a single mark that disappears on the first trim. If resisting cropping is the priority, tile. For stronger technical protection a watermark cannot help — that is digital rights management, well outside what an image tool addresses.
Someone cropped or retouched my watermark away. Can I recover it?
Recovery works through evidence and platform rules rather than the watermark itself. When you spot the reuse, do three things first: save a full screenshot of their page including publication time and link, establish that you published the original earlier (the first publication date is the strongest evidence), and screenshot the watermarked version together with your account. Then file a complaint through the platform — most image and content hosts have an infringement channel. The watermark's role in that process is to corroborate that you marked the image, supporting your claim of authorship.
The watermarked image looks grey and dirty. How do I fix it?
Usually two causes: opacity too high, or the watermark colour too close to the background. Bring opacity down to 20%–30% and make sure the colour contrasts with the base (dark text on light images, light text on dark ones) and the dirtiness largely resolves. Also check whether the export was JPG: the background colour filled into semi-transparent areas during JPG conversion will show as a visible patch if it does not match the original, and PNG avoids the issue entirely. Shrinking the font slightly and increasing the rotation angle evens out the texture and cleans up the look.