Positioning & sizing

Ultimate Watermark supports a familiar 9-point anchor grid plus pixel- or percentage-based offsets. Combined with auto-scale, you can build watermarks that look right on a 400 px thumbnail and a 4000 px hero image.

The 9-point grid

Pick one of nine anchors. The watermark's box is positioned relative to that anchor:

top-left      top      top-right
   ◯           ◯           ◯
            
   ◯           ◯           ◯
left       center        right

   ◯           ◯           ◯
bottom-left  bottom   bottom-right

Anchor values (from AddWatermarkPage.php:897–910):

Anchor	Behaviour
top-left	Watermark's top-left corner aligns with image's top-left + offsets.
top	Watermark's top edge aligns horizontally centred.
top-right	Watermark's top-right corner aligns with image's top-right − x-offset.
left	Watermark's left edge aligns vertically centred.
center	Watermark is centred.
right	Watermark's right edge aligns vertically centred.
bottom-left	Watermark's bottom-left corner aligns with image's bottom-left + offsets.
bottom	Watermark's bottom edge aligns horizontally centred.
bottom-right	Watermark's bottom-right corner aligns with image's bottom-right − offsets.

Offsets

After picking an anchor, nudge the watermark with X and Y offsets:

Field	Range	Note
Offset X	−100 to +100	Horizontal nudge from anchor. Negative shifts left.
Offset Y	−100 to +100	Vertical nudge. Negative shifts up.
Offset unit	pixels or percentage	Switches between absolute (px) and image-relative (%).

Pixels vs percentage

• Pixels: useful for fine corner padding (e.g. always 20 px in from the edge regardless of image size).
• Percentage: scales with image size (e.g. 5 % from each edge — looks the same on small thumbs and big hero images).

Common combos

Goal	Anchor	Offset X	Offset Y	Unit
Corner stamp 20 px in	bottom-right	-20	-20	pixels
Centred diagonal	center	0	0	pixels
Faint margin watermark	bottom-right	-5	-5	percentage
Top banner	top	0	10	pixels

Auto-scale by image dimensions

For image watermarks, the Scaled % size mode (AddWatermarkPage.php:795–802) makes the watermark width track the image width:

Setting	What it means
100	Watermark width = image width (same as image).
50	Watermark width = half the image width.
25	Watermark width = a quarter of the image width.
10	Watermark width = a tenth of the image width.

Use case: a logo that should be roughly 1/8 of the image width — so it's small on a thumbnail and scales up on a hero image. Set Scaled % = 12.5.

For text watermarks, font scaling is handled automatically by the rendering library:

• Imagick scales the font size with the subsize ratio (ImagickWatermarkProcessor.php:86–88).
• GD uses your declared font size literally — set the size that looks right on the largest output.

Quality controls (image watermark)

Setting	Default	Range	Note
Output quality	90	1–100	JPEG quality. 90 is sane; 95+ is overkill for web.
JPEG type	baseline	baseline / progressive	Progressive renders top-to-bottom; baseline is faster.

For PNG output, quality is lossless — these controls are ignored.

What's NOT supported

The following are not in the current builder:

• Random position — there's no "place watermark at a random spot" toggle. (Math.random is only used for rule IDs, see AddWatermarkPage.php:1204.)
• Padding / safe-area beyond X/Y offsets — there's no separate margin field.
• Tile / repeat — no built-in repeating pattern. Use a single watermark instead.
• Rotation — no built-in rotate slider. Pre-rotate your watermark image in another tool.

If random position or rotation is critical, add it via a custom hook against ultimate_watermark_apply_custom_type (see Hooks & filters).

Tips for sharp watermarks

• For PNG logos, render your source PNG at 2× the largest output size so it scales down crisply.
• For text watermarks, prefer system fonts (Arial, Helvetica, Georgia, Times) — custom fonts via Imagick are tricky on shared hosts.
• For dark-on-dark issues, set color #ffffff with opacity 80, or vice versa.

Per-subsize positioning

Each WordPress subsize (thumbnail, medium, large, full) is rendered independently. Ultimate Watermark applies the same position settings to each — but percentage offsets scale with the subsize, so:

• A 400 × 300 thumbnail: 5 % offset = 20 px / 15 px.
• A 4000 × 3000 hero: 5 % offset = 200 px / 150 px.

That's why percentage offsets are recommended for multi-size sites.

Testing your position

The fastest way to dial in position:

1. Save the watermark template.
2. Upload one test image (different aspect ratios — square, landscape, portrait).
3. View at every subsize via the Edit Image screen (Media → click image → Image attributes shows each size's URL).
4. Iterate the offset values.

Save → upload → tweak — usually 3 iterations is enough.

Where to go next

• 🖼️ Watermarks — text / image fields.
• 🎯 Conditional rules — apply watermarks selectively.
• ⚡ Performance — sizing for performance trade-offs.