Create a transparent watermark in Photoshop

Published on January 27, 2022

How do I create a transparent watermark in Photoshop?

I’ll show you how to create a transparent watermark in Adobe Photoshop.

If you’d rather watch the video tutorial of this process, click here or scroll down to the end of this page.

Transparent watermark

Open the image you want to add a watermark to. Then select the horizontal type tool and pick a font you like. You can use any font you want. It doesn’t matter which color you use.

Type the text you want as your watermark. Then select the move tool and press CTRL+T to activate free transform. Resize your text and pick the correct placement.

Lower the fill of the text layer to 0%. Your text is now invisible. Double click on the text layer to open the layer style window (or click on the ‘fx’ icon at the bottom of the layer panel and select ‘blending options’).

Select ‘bevel & emboss‘. You can find the settings I used in the image below, copy these settings.

Then select ‘drop shadow‘. Again copy the settings below. You can lower the opacity of the drop shadow if you want the black edge to be softer.

Press OK when you’re done. You now have a transparent watermark covering your image. You can adjust the settings by double clicking on the effect that you want to change in your layer panel. The layer style window will then open again. To make the shadows more visible, you can increase the distance, spread and/or size. Lower them to make them less visible.

You can still adjust the text and/or font. Select the horizontal type tool and select your text to make changes.

Apply to another image

You can easily apply this watermark to another image. Select the (watermark) text layer. Press CTRL+C to copy this text layer.

Then open the file you want to apply the watermark to. Press CTRL+V to paste the text layer. The watermark, including the effects you added to it, is now applied to this file too. Again you can adjust the settings by double clicking on the effect you want to change in your layer panel. If this file is much larger or smaller in size than the one you edited first, your watermark may look different. If it’s larger, you need to increase the settings to create a similar look. If the file is smaller, decrease the amounts.