Image watermarking — Troubleshooting

Worked example

A weak watermark usually comes down to colour, size, a logo with a box, or a download that is out of date.

If the mark cannot be seen on a bright area, the default white blends into it. Change the colour with the colour control, raise the opacity above 60 percent, or move the layer to a darker corner. If the mark looks too heavy, lower opacity toward 40 percent rather than shrinking it.

If the text looks stretched or squashed, you probably dragged a side or held Shift while resizing. Use a corner drag to keep the proportions. If a logo shows a white rectangle around it, the file is a JPG with no transparency, so use a transparent PNG instead. If the mark will not get smaller, note that layers have a minimum size of about 2.5 percent of the shorter image side, or at least 18 px.

If the page says settings changed and asks you to process again, the earlier download no longer matches what you see. Process once more and download the new file. For SVG or AVIF sources the output is a PNG rather than the original format.

If the result still disappoints, do not stack a second mark on the exported file. Return to the unmarked original and rebuild the layers, because a mark added over an old mark cannot be separated later.

Photograph + logo or text

Flattened marked image

If the on-screen status says settings changed, process again before downloading, otherwise the file will not match the preview.