Add a watermark to protect your photos and images

Aug 14, 2020

Stop giving away your photos for free! Our-Hometown’s WordPress Publishing Platform includes a watermark plugin that allows you to easily apply an overlay of your logo to any photos uploaded to your website, protecting them from would-be thieves who want to reuse the content for their own benefit. This feature is included free with all Our-Hometown websites. 

Once the plugin is enabled, the watermark you setup can be automatically applied to all images uploaded to the website’s media library; so there is no extra work on your end beyond a one-time configuration of your watermark.

A settings page is available from your dashboard. This page includes some pretty basic settings, such as whether you want to apply the watermark manually or automatically, and a selection box allowing you to choose to which image sizes the watermark should be applied.

The watermark positioning section includes a visual grid with nine positions available to display your watermark. Make your selection simply by marking the circle in the box that you’ve chosen. You can also define an offset to further refine the position of the image.

Finally, the watermark image section is where you will upload the actual image to be used as your watermark. Any image can be used. Newspapers commonly use their logo as the watermark, but some have opted instead for a simple text copyright message in image form. Whatever you decide, the most important thing to remember is that the background should be transparent, and your image should be saved as a .PNG or .GIF image to preserve that transparency. The watermark will not look very good if your logo contains a background.

Several other options exist in this section, allowing you to customize the scale and transparency of the image.

Another section for image protection offers some additional features to protect your digital property. By enabling these options, you can prevent the ability for visitors to right click on an image, or to drag & drop an image in order to save it to their computer. Still, computer-savvy thieves can find a way around these measures, and the most efficient form of protection is the image watermark itself!

If you’re interested in using Watermarks on your photos, send an email to Our-Hometown's support team at ops@our-hometown.com to request this plugin today!