Top Tips for image watermarking

DO include lots of colour photography in your artwork

Colour photographs work great with watermarks, and always scan reliably. Try and fill your artwork with as much colour photography as possible.

DON’T try to watermark artwork that has lots of white space

White space will not take a watermark, and will not scan. Also, be careful with large areas of solid colour as they can ‘reveal’ stronger watermarks, which means people might be able to see them with the naked eye.

DO add all the extra text and graphics you need before you watermark your final image

You should only watermark your image once you have it ready for print.

DON’T resize your image after it has been watermarked.

If you change the size of the image by more than 10%, the watermark may stop working. The image you watermark should be the same dimensions and resolution as the final print size. If you are not sure what height, width and resolution to use, check with your printer.

DO save your image as a JPG or a TIFF before you watermark it.

If you are using a TIFF, make sure your image is ‘flattened’ before watermarking (and is not ‘multi-layer’).

DON’T try watermarking an image larger than 150MB.

If your image is too big, it won’t work. Try compressing your image to get the file size down below 150MB.

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