Watermark settings by hand
The export dialog draws a text watermark in one size, one margin and white. A preset in export-presets.json can hold more: a PNG logo instead of text, a size for either, and a margin of your own. This page lists the keys. Read Writing a preset by hand first for the shape of the file and how to edit it without losing your presets.
The watermark key
Inside a preset, watermark is an object with five keys, all needed; leave watermark out altogether for none. This is the one from the print-lab example on the previous page:
"watermark": {
"content": { "kind": "image", "path": "/Users/maya/Pictures/logo.png" },
"anchor": "bottomRight",
"scalePercent": 15,
"marginPercent": 3,
"opacity": 0.8
}
Text or a logo
content is one of two things.
{ "kind": "text", "text": "© Maya Hartley" }is what the dialog writes when you type into the Watermark field. It is drawn in white, in the system font.{ "kind": "image", "path": "/Users/maya/Pictures/logo.png" }is a logo. Write the full path of an image on this Mac, from/. A PNG with a transparent background is the usual choice. If Vixlo cannot read the file when it exports, because it was moved or deleted or is not an image, it skips the watermark and delivers the photographs without it, with no message.
The other four keys
| Key | What it holds |
|---|---|
anchor | Where the watermark sits, one of the nine words in the grid below. |
scalePercent | For text, the font size; for a logo, its width, the height following the logo's shape. Both as a percent of the frame's short edge. The dialog uses 4. |
marginPercent | The gap between the watermark and the edge, as a percent of the short edge. The dialog uses 3. It applies only on the sides the position touches, so a centre watermark has none. |
opacity | A number from 0 to 1: 0.7 is 70%, where the dialog starts. Zero or less draws nothing, and more than 1 counts as 1. |
| Left | Centre | Right | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top | topLeft (Top left) | topCentre (Top) | topRight (Top right) |
| Middle | middleLeft (Left) | centre (Centre) | middleRight (Right) |
| Bottom | bottomLeft (Bottom left) | bottomCentre (Bottom) | bottomRight (Bottom right) |
The words in brackets are what the position menu in the dialog calls them. The keys are case-sensitive, and a position spelled any other way stops the whole file from loading.
What the sizes come to
Both sizes follow the frame's short edge, so a watermark looks the same size on a portrait and a landscape frame from one shoot. On a 6000 × 4000 frame the short edge is 4000 px:
- a text
scalePercentof 4 is a font size of 160 px; - a logo at 15 is 600 px wide;
- a
marginPercentof 3 leaves 120 px between the watermark and the edge.
Blank text, a scalePercent of zero or less and an opacity of zero or less all draw nothing. Only the Fast engine draws a watermark; Max quality delivers the frame without it. The watermark goes into the exported file and nothing else, as with the text one the dialog sets.
A logo in the dialog
The Watermark field cannot show a logo. Choose a preset with an image watermark and the field stays empty, showing None, while the position menu, the Opacity slider and the line Drawn into the exported file only — never into your originals, a sidecar or a preview. appear under it. Those are the only sign in this row that a logo will be drawn. The menu and the slider change the logo's position and opacity. Typing into the field replaces the logo with your text but keeps the logo's size, margin, position and opacity, so text typed over the print-lab example is drawn at 15% of the short edge, not the 4% of a text watermark set in the dialog. Clearing the field does not take the logo away. To export without it, choose another preset, or type a letter into the field and delete it.
Press Save as preset… with a logo in force and the new preset keeps the logo, its size and its margin along with the rest.