Adding watermarks to your original images, will protect your work from being used by others without getting attribution. There are quite a lot of watermarking tools available and this feature is even included in some image editing applications.
Bytescout Watermarking is such a free tool, that offers just a few essential options, but one of them is very important: batch support for adding watermarks. With this great feature you can avoid manual work and add watermarks to multiple images simultaneously.
Installation & Requirements
Bytescout Watermarking has an adware-free setup and it offers the option of adding context menu integration to Windows Explorer. The small tool runs on Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8 and it’s free to use. There’s also a commercial version, Bytescout Watermarking PRO, which includes extra features like adding multiple watermarks at once, support for animated GIFs, save/load profiles, custom watermark placement and others.
Interface
Bytescout Watermarking is extremely easy to use with its wizard-style approach of the watermarking process. Image selection is the first step. You can add individual images, an entire folder and even a folder along with its subfolders. After you’ve setup your image list, the next step takes you to watermark type selection and customization. Here you can choose between different watermark styles such as Text Fits Page, Tiled Text, Stamp, Stamp Fits Page…etc. or even use file attributes such as Date and Time or File Name. Each watermark type can be customized to some extent via options like font, font size, font color, placement and transparency (only available for some types).
The following dialog window includes a wide array of adjustments which include image resizing, overriding resolution and adding image effects. Sadly, these are all premium options and users of the free version only get a preview button.
The final panel lets you choose the format for the output images. Bytescout Watermarking supports JPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF and GIF. For the JPG format users can change the quality via the Advanced button. Also, in the same panel you can select the output folder. Once you are done with the settings, simply press the Start! Button and let the program do its thing. A progress bar will be displayed along with a few options such as exploring the output folder, re-launching and closing the wizard.
Pros
– Speedy, adware-free setup.
– Built-in wizard offers an easy way of adding watermarks to images.
– Offers multiple watermark presets.
– Includes option for Explorer context menu integration.
– Support for adding watermarks to images in batch.
Cons
– Includes many premium features, disabled in the free version.
Conclusion
Bytescout Watermarking has some important advantages: it’s free, it has an intuitive, friendly wizard for adding watermarks and supports batch watermarks. Although it includes a set of watermark presets, it does feel somewhat limited. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a basic watermark tool, it has everything you’d need for adding watermarks to images without having to go through complicated settings.
