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Polished and Protected: How to Watermark WordPress Images
by Southie Williamson on Feb 20, 2024 Reader Disclosure
Are you wondering how to add a watermark to images in WordPress? Adding your logo to pictures is a great way to boost brand awareness. And if you showcase or sell photography or digital art on your website, you can watermark WordPress images to help prevent theft and misuse.
In this article, we’ll show you how to watermark an image and customize the way it looks using the best watermark plugin for WordPress. Let’s get started!
What is the best way to watermark your photos?
The best way to watermark your photos in WordPress is with Envira Gallery. The plugin lets you easily apply an image or text watermark to photos and customize the appearance, size, position, rotation, and margins. You can bulk watermark your images and automatically add watermarks to photos whenever they’re placed in a gallery.
There’s no need for a separate WordPress watermark remover since Envira Gallery will automatically create a copy of your original images without your watermarking settings applied. The plugin also integrates with WooCommerce, so you can create beautiful eCommerce galleries with watermarked product images.
Aside from being an easy watermark plugin, Envira Gallery is the best WordPress gallery plugin and has over 3 million downloads. It allows you to design stunning image and video galleries using popular layout options like masonry, slideshow, fullscreen, and more with lightbox display.
Check out more of the features that our users love:
- Albums to organize, manage, and display multiple galleries.
- Social sharing buttons, captions, and even EXIF data to display camera model, aperture, shutter speed, etc..
- Dynamic galleries to showcase featured content, blog posts, Instagram posts, testimonials, and more.
- Password-protected galleries and image protection to disable right-click download for visitors.
- Filterable galleries and albums using tags.
- Built-in image compression, pagination, deeplinking, and breadcrumbs for better SEO.
- Client image proofing and Adobe Lightroom integration.
- And lots more…
How to Watermark Images in WordPress
Step 1: Install Envira Gallery and Activate Watermarking
The first thing you’ll need to do is install and activate the plugin on your WordPress website. Head to Envira Gallery’s pricing page, and grab a license. You’ll need the Plus plan or above to watermark images.
After purchasing, download the plugin’s ZIP file, and install it on your site. Don’t forget to press Activate Plugin when it finishes installing.
Once activated, go to Envira Gallery » Settings from your WordPress menu to enter your license key (you can find it in your account area on the Envira Gallery website or in your purchase confirmation email).
Paste it in the box and press Verify Key.
If you need more help with this step, you can check out our detailed installation tutorial here.
Next, you need to install the Watermarking Addon. Head to Envira Gallery » Addons and find it in the list of addons. Click Install and toggle on Activate after the button changes.
Now you’re ready to create a new gallery and watermark WordPress images!
Step 2: Create a New Photo Gallery
Before you can add a watermark to photos, you’ll need to create a new gallery (or select an existing one). To create a new one, click Envira Gallery » Add New.
Give your gallery a title. Then, go ahead and add images to your gallery using the upload box. Press Select Files from Other Sources to import photos from your WordPress media library.
Once you’ve added your images, scroll down to the settings panel where you’ll see the photos currently in your gallery.
Using the left sidebar menu you can select a gallery layout under Configuration and customize other settings.
Depending on which addons you have installed, you’ll see a number of other display settings you can adjust in the customizer panel. We’re not going to cover all of them in this article, but you can learn more in our documentation.
Step 3: Create Your Watermark
To add a watermark to images in your gallery, click Watermarking in the left menu. Check the box next to Enable Watermarking.
Press Choose Watermark to upload or select the image you want to use as a watermark. Most people use their logo, but you can use any image you want. For example, we’ve seen creative patterns and even funny clipart used as a watermark.
After you’ve added the watermark image, a preview box will appear.
If you’d like to add a text watermark instead of an image, just use the dropdown menu to change the watermark to Text. Then, type your custom word or phrase in the box.
You can change the font, size, and color of your text watermark. To make it transparent, click Select Color and adjust the slider.
Pro Tip: Great Vibes, Yellowtail, and Alex Brush are 3 of our favorite fonts to use if you want to watermark images with text that looks like a signature. We especially love the look on digital art photos.
Step 4: Adjust Your Watermark Settings
You’ve learned how to put a watermark on a photo, but you’ll want to customize how it’s displayed using the options below the preview:
- Image Scale – adjust the size of your watermark.
- Position – place your watermark in one of the corners or in the center.
- Rotation – rotate your watermark by a set degree.
- Repeat – automatically make the watermark to repeat vertically and horizontally across your photo.
- Margin – set the space between the photo’s border and the watermark.
You can enable Keep Original Images to have Envira Gallery automatically create a copy of your original image without your watermarking settings applied. This is a super handy feature since you may want to display photos without watermarks in certain areas of your site like behind a paywall or in a members area for subscribed users.
Envira Gallery will automatically watermark images when they’re added to the gallery, but you’ll need to enable Apply Watermark to Existing Images to add watermarks to photos already in the gallery.
Step 5: Publish Your Watermarked Photos
Now that you’ve learned how to edit your watermark and apply it to photos, it’s time to add the gallery to your site. First, click Publish in the top right.
After it’s published, go to the post or page where you want to embed your gallery. Click the + sign to add a new block wherever you’d like. Search for and select the Envira Gallery block.
Use the dropdown menu inside the block to select the gallery you want to embed.
Finally, press Update to save your changes.
You can head to that page on your website to see how your new watermarked photo gallery looks. Take a look at our sample to see the semi-transparent, repeating watermark we applied:
That’s it, you learned how to automatically add a watermark to photos in WordPress!
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I watermark my photos on my website?
Whether or not to watermark photos shared online is hotly topic debated topic among photographers. Adding a watermark to images gives you credit for your creative work, spreads brand awareness, makes it easier for people to find your other work, and can (in theory) help protect against copyright infringement. You should consider the pros and cons of watermarking and decide which choice is right for your business.
Expert Tip:
Reasons Photographers Watermark
- They do not want their clients printing their own photos – as part of their packaging may include prints.
- They do not want their clients to print low-resolution images downloaded from the internet because they want to give their clients the best possible prints from a professional printing service.
- They take pride in their hard work and do not want their images reproduced or stolen and posted on other websites without their consent.
- They feel that a watermark will allow viewers to easily find and quickly identify their photos and brand as their images get shared around the web.
Reasons Photographers Are Against Watermarking
- They feel that watermarks are an eyesore and can weaken the composition of your photo.
- They say that if someone really wants to steal your photo, they will take it regardless of your watermark. Most watermarks can be removed quite easily these days using software and apps. Watermarks can also be cropped out if they are near the edge of your image.
- They argue that if people steal your photos, it’s an easy lawsuit.
Anna G.
Professional Portrait Photographer, Photoshop Expert,
Author of the dPS eBook The Art of Self-Portraiture
Can I use a multiple different watermarks?
Yes! Each gallery has it’s own watermarking settings, so you can use a different watermark for each gallery. Then, just add the photos you want to have that watermark to that gallery. If you have the Keep Original Images option enabled, you’ll see any watermarked photos as duplicates of their originals in your media library. So, you could even combine images that have different watermarks into a non-watermarking gallery.
Can I watermark videos with Envira Gallery?
Envira Gallery lets you easily add videos to your galleries from YouTube, Vimeo, Local URLs, and other sources. The plugin will automatically create the image for each video, and any watermark settings will apply to the video’s gallery image (thumbnail). However, the plugin does not add a watermark to the video itself, regardless of which source it is from.
We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to watermark WordPress images easily!
Not using Envira Gallery? Get started today!
Want to learn how to add a watermark using photo editing software? Check out these tutorials:
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