How to Add a Watermark to a Photo in Corel Photo-Paint

Watermarks protect the ownership of digital images

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Updated on November 3, 2021

What to Know

Select the text tool, then set the font, text size, and formatting of the watermark. Select the area where you want the mark and type the text.
Go to Effects > 3D Effects > Emboss and set the Depth, Level, Direction, and Emboss color. Select OK.
Go to Window > Inspectors > Objects and change the merge mode to Hard Light. Use Effects > Blur > Gaussian Blur to smooth it.

Placing a watermark on images that you plan to post on the web identifies those images as your work and discourages people from copying or claiming your work as their own. Here's a simple way to add a watermark in Corel Photo-Paint 2020 on macOS 10.15 (Catalina) and should be similar in other versions and platforms.

How to Make a Watermark in Corel

Although there's no one-click option to create a watermark, the steps below are straightforward and allow lots of formatting options.

Open an image.
Select the Text tool from the toolbar on the left.
In the property bar, set the font, text size, and formatting of the watermark.
Click the area in which you want to place your watermark.
Type the watermark text.
Select the Object Pick Tool and adjust the text position if necessary.
Go to Effects > 3D Effects > Emboss.
In the emboss options, set the Depth as desired, the Level to 100, Direction as desired, and the Emboss color to Gray. Click OK.
Display the object docker by going to Window > Inspectors > Objects.
Select the embossed text or object and change the merge mode to Hard Light in the object docker. (The merge mode is the drop-down menu in the object docker that is set to Normal by default.)
Smooth the effect by going to Effects > Blur > Gaussian Blur. A 1-pixel blur works well.

Tips for Applying Your Watermark

If you want the watermark a little more visible, use a custom color in the Emboss options, and set it to a gray color slightly lighter than 50% gray.

Scaling the text after applying the effect may cause it to appear jaggy or pixelated. A bit more Gaussian blur will remedy this problem.

You can edit the text by clicking it with the type tool, but you'll lose the effects and will have to reapply them.

You're not restricted to text for this effect. You can use a logo or symbol as a watermark. If you use the same watermark often, save it to a file that you can drop into an image whenever needed.

The Windows keyboard shortcut for the copyright symbol is Alt+0169 (use the numeric keypad to type the numbers). The macOS shortcut is Option+G.

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