Is it possible to create watermarks in Xara?

[handrawn]

Steve - this will only work if all the images are the same size.

well, yes... as I understand it it's a method of putting one image that's on one page onto all the other pages, I'm not sure resizing is meant to come into it

all I can say is it's taken directly from page 151 of the XPGD7 manual - can't remember ever having used the feature myself....

[steve.ledger]

The watermark will not appear over each image in the exact same position.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who makes that particular typo

Yes, doing this this will paste a copy of the watermark on top of an image which is in the same position on each page, but it won't in fact 'watermark the image'. The watermark will be exported as a single seperate object unless you group it with the image.

But grouping a photo with a watermark will cause Xara to export the watermarked photos as a PNG thus increasing the Kb size significantly. You'd have to select each image on each page and set the export type to JPG in Web properties>>Image.

(as alluded to by Gary)

Export each image to your preferred bitmap format (PNG, JPEG) as you create it.

For me, the better way is to watermark images prior to using them in Web Designer. In other words, prepare them first.
There are numerous freeware apps to help out.

Note: The OP mentioned he doesn't see the context menu item 'Repeat on all pages', this is not present in Photo & Graphic Designer 6.
For version 6, press SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+R or from the Arrange menu.

[handrawn]

thanks for the clarifications

it would still work as :

I just need to create a repeating object (transparent so it's not covering up the content) as the top layer of each page

though, wouldn't it ?

[Big Frank]

Watermarking your images using an automated process before you drop them into your Xara document is by far the most efficient way to achieve this if you have a lot of images. I use an Action in Photoshop for this, but there's plenty of dedicated apps out there that will do this.

It would be fairly easy for me to show you how to restore an image that's been watermarked, but it would be against the rules of this forum, so I won't do it. Unless you really deface an image with your watermark, nothing you do will put off a determined thief with some graphical talent. There's software out there that displays images that cannot be snaffled by screenshot apps, but it's technically fussy and possibly prohibitively expensive. It all depends on your requirements and the effort you're prepared to put into making your images as thief-proof as possible.

Technically, this image would be easy to restore to its unwatermarked state, but it would simply require some time: