What Sort of Artwork Watermarks Best?

A Rezolve Image Watermark is a hidden layer placed into an image. The watermark is designed to be invisible to the naked eye, but detectable by Rezolve-enabled mobile apps.

Some types of images will ‘hide’ a watermark better than others.

Photographs Work Best

Watermarking works best with color photographs, especially ‘busy’ photographs that contain lots of different colors, tones and shading. This sort of photo, with lots of ‘textures’, will support a strong watermark of 5 or higher and will scan reliably.

Avoid Solid Black or Solid White

Solid black or solid white won’t watermark at all. If you use a lot of those colors, you could end up with large portions of your image which won’t be watermarked. This will affect how well your artwork will scan in the field.

Be Careful With Solid Colors

Stronger watermarks are visible to the naked eye in areas of solid color. It’s a good idea to add a texture to the solid color, which will hide a watermark better. If you artwork has a lot of solid color, you will need to use a weaker watermark of around 3 or 4, which will scan less reliably when printed.

Create Your Final ‘Print-Ready’ Image Before Watermarking

When creating your artwork, you need to get it ‘print-ready’ before you watermark it, as you won’t be able to edit it afterwards.

  • Make sure it is the right size for printing
  • Make sure it is the correct resolution for printing
  • Make sure you’ve added all the graphical and text elements you need

There is some advice in Common Problems Encountered if you are having trouble with creating your image.