According to the copyright law, you gain complete rights of a photo the moment you release that shutter button. This means that, once you’ve taken a photo, you become the only one who can use it, edit it, make copies or display it in public. So once you upload an image online, you become the rightful owner of that image. In theory, you don’t have to do anything else to claim your ownership. In reality, it’s not the case. Unfortunately.
Image theft has spread over the years and it has become a real concern, particularly for those who earn money through their photography. People are shamelessly stealing others’ original content and posting it on their social media pages, their websites and blogs. If you don’t want your pictures stolen or misused, you need to protect them. At the end of the day, it doesn’t even matter if you have any financial gains or not. This is a matter of principle. It’s your work and nobody else should get the credit for it.
One of the best ways to defend against theft is to add a copyright watermark to your images. This way you make it clear that the pictures represent your intellectual property. Whoever uses them without your prior consent becomes guilty of copyright infringement. So if you’ve taken a shot with your iPhone and wish to watermark it before uploading it online, you’ve come to the right place. Below you can find a list of iPhone apps you can reliably use to protect your original photography.
PhotoMarks
PhotoMarks is our first proposal to add a copyright notice to your photos on iPhone. The app is quite simple to use thanks to its intuitive interface and offers a batch processing feature, so you can watermark multiple images at once. You can add pictures directly from Photos, work in both landscape and portrait mode and undo & redo your actions when it’s necessary.
PhotoMarks gives you the possibility to insert a copyright text into your images, as well as a logo and customize each one according to your preferences. This means that you’re free to choose the exact position, size and rotation of the watermark, adjust the transparency level, select the desired font style and color or apply special effects like stroke and shadow. When you’ve finished editing, you can save the photos on your iPhone, send them via email or share them on social networks.
To help you improve your workflow, PhotoMarks allows you to save your current watermarking configuration as a Profile and load it in other sessions. This way you won’t have to go through the same steps over and over again.
- Price: Free (Subscription: $9.99/year)
- Requirements: iOS 12.0 or later
- Download on App Store
eZy Watermark
eZy Watermark places at your disposal the means you need to quickly copyright your photos and then share them with the world. The app comes with a user-friendly design and plenty of watermarking options. You can watermark as many images as you want and create your own templates for later use. There’s an option to create separate templates for portrait and landscape pictures.
With eZy Watermark you can use various elements as a watermark: your name, your hand-written signature, your logo, a contemporary QR code and of course a copyright or trademark notice. Regardless of the chosen mark, you can customize it to your liking. This iPhone app lets you adjust the location, scale, alignment and rotation, set the opacity, select from over 150 fonts and colors or drop a shadow effect.
In case you need to edit your images before watermarking them, the app gives you the opportunity to rotate, crop and apply a black and white filter.
- Price: $5.99
- Requirements: iOS 12.1 or later
- Download on App Store
Watermark Photo
Watermark Photo provides multiple possibilities to protect your original content directly from your iPhone. The app allows you to import an already created watermark and, at the same time, offers the opportunity to easily design a brand new one from scratch. In that sense it comes packed with more than a thousand graphic elements, including copyright icons, badges, stickers, as well as a large library of fonts and colors.
Depending on your preferences, you can create a unique logo, use your own signature or add the preferred copyright text. The app lets you make diverse adjustments to your watermark and provides undo and redo support. In terms of exporting, you can save the newly-edited photos to an album on your device or directly share them online. It’s worth mentioning that Watermark Photo offers a feature to watermark videos as well.
- Price: Free (Subscription: $39.99/year)
- Requirements: iOS 13.0 or later
- Download on App Store
Markapp
Markapp is an interesting solution to copyright both photos and videos. This iPhone app comes with an easy-to-understand user interface and offers a couple of features to increase your editing efficiency. For that purpose, you have the possibility to watermark images in bulk and to save your current design within the app or the photo library and use it in other projects.
Markapp stands out through its variety of watermarking options. You can import an existing logo, but also enter the Creative mode and design one by taking advantage of the multitude of stock icons, fonts and gradient colors available. If you feel like creating a logo is not for you, you can resort to the ready-to-use templates. Simply select one of the available watermark examples and just customize it with your personal data.
- Price: Free (Subscription: $19.99/year)
- Requirements: iOS 13.0 or later
- Download on App Store
Mix on Pix
Mix on Pix is a solution that puts emphasis on photo enhancement through words. The app allows you to create eye-catching images by adding stock text, quotes, handwritings, dates and more. Of course, you have an option to copyright your images and protect your artwork from being misused. In that sense, the app enables you to insert simple or composite watermarks and adjust them as you please.
In addition to text, Mix on Pix gives you the possibility to use various graphics. You can add drawings, arrows, shapes, borders and other elements to make annotations or make your pictures stand out. The app lets you work with multiple sessions and save your designs for later use. When you’re done, you can export your newly-edited photos at full resolution, as well as compile them into a PDF document and send it online.
- Price: Free (IAP from $1.99 to $3.99)
- Requirements: iOS 12.3 or later
- Download on App Store
Watermark – Photos & Videos
As you’ve probably guessed it, Watermark – Photos & Videos is designed to protect both your images and clips from online theft. The app offers the opportunity to add a copyright or trademark text, your own signature or a logo and customize each one to match your preferences. You can choose the exact placement, size and rotation angle, regulate the opacity or select from more than 150 font styles.
Watermark – Photos & Videos allows you to import pictures from multiple sources and to directly upload your files to popular social platforms. The app provides some options to retouch your images and also to make them pop by applying a wide range of stickers to them. In case you constantly work with photos that require protection, you can save your commonly-used watermarks and reuse them.
- Price: Free (Subscription: $29.99/year)
- Requirements: iOS 13.0 or later
- Download on App Store
Watermark Easy
Watermark Easy is our final alternative for those who need to add copyright info to their iPhone photography and videography. You can import your own watermark or design one using diverse graphic elements, such as clip art, copyright icons, numerous font styles and colors.
The app lets you add any form of text, signature or logo to your pics and videos and make various customizations to it. You can create your own templates and batch watermark files to boost your productivity. In addition to watermarks, you can also apply diverse artistic filters to enhance your visual content.
- Price: Free (Subscription: $39.99/year)
- Requirements: iOS 11.0 or later
- Download on App Store
