Photo Copyright Notice

It is a free utility that adds a visible copyright notice to photos, the same way a text watermark works. You type the notice, choose where it sits, its color, how opaque it is, and how large it is relative to the image, then apply it to every photo you have added. Each photo gets the text drawn in bold with a soft shadow so it reads on light and dark areas, and a Download button appears for each marked copy.

A standard notice has three parts: the copyright symbol or the word Copyright, the year of first publication, and the name of the copyright owner, for example the symbol followed by the year and your business name. The Copyright Text field starts with a sample in exactly that shape, so replace the year and name with your own before applying it. You can also add a website address if you want people to know where to license the image.

Copyright exists as soon as you take the photo, but a clear notice still helps. It tells everyone who sees the image that it is owned and not free to use, which deters casual copying. In some jurisdictions, including the United States, a proper notice also makes it harder for an infringer to claim innocent infringement, which can reduce damages. And if it includes your name or website, it shows people how to reach you to license the work.

Apply it as the last step, to finished exports intended for sharing: web galleries, social media, previews sent to prospective clients, or portfolio sites. Keep clean, unmarked masters for prints and paid deliveries. Since the tool stamps text into a copy of each image, your originals stay untouched, so you can mark a batch for each destination with different settings, for example a subtle corner notice for a portfolio and a larger central one for proofs.

Check the text field before you apply. If the symbol appears as a question mark or a box there, it was mangled when you pasted it. Delete it and type it directly: on Windows hold Alt and type 0169 on the numeric keypad, and on a Mac press Option and G. You can also write Copyright or (c) instead. Once the field shows the symbol correctly, the stamped images will too, because the text is drawn into the pixels.

An embedded notice lives in the file's metadata: invisible, so the image stays clean, but easily stripped by platforms or removed by anyone who wants to. A visible notice, which is what this tool makes, is drawn into the pixels, so it survives sharing and screenshots and deters casual copying, at the cost of some intrusion into the composition. Many photographers use both. Note that the stamped JPG this tool saves does not carry over the original file's metadata.

No. It only draws your notice onto copies of your photos. Registration is a separate legal process with your national copyright office, usually involving an application, a fee, and copies of the work. A visible notice states your claim publicly, but in some countries, including the United States, registration is required before you can sue for infringement and may affect the damages you can claim. Check the rules where you work.

This tool does not write metadata; it stamps the notice into the image itself. To embed it as well, open your photo management or editing software, find the metadata panel, and paste the same notice into the IPTC copyright field, adding your website in the contact or rights fields if you like. Saving those details as a metadata preset applied on import means every new photo carries your notice automatically from the start.

The year should be the year the photo was first published, which is not always the year it was taken. A wrong year generally does not cancel your copyright, but it can cause confusion about the term of protection or when the work was first released. Because the field in this tool starts with a sample year, check it every time you use the tool, and update the year in any presets you use at the start of each year.

Many social platforms and image sites strip EXIF and IPTC metadata from posted files, to shrink file sizes and protect privacy by removing details such as location. That also removes any embedded copyright notice, so metadata alone does not protect images shared there. A visible notice, like the one this tool stamps into the pixels, stays with the image wherever it is posted, which is why it is worth adding to anything you share publicly.